


Issue #248

by Dreadmartha



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: F/M, M/M, Not Phantom Planet Compliant, Slow Burn, Vlad doesn't stop being a dick but he does learn some stuff, ive listened to nothing but the soundtrack to chicago the whole time ive been writing this, they bone at the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadmartha/pseuds/Dreadmartha
Summary: They all learn to love each other and deal with what happened to Vlad while he was in the 'hospital.'





	1. 01

**Author's Note:**

> It is vitally important that you imagine Vlad Masters with a thick Midwestern accent. Here's something for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Je2WxsqWA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad gets a kra~zy idea to make Jack a police officer. Then he looks at some old porno.

**01**

**Present**

* * *

 

Vlad tucked the article in the corner of his mirror, folding it so the picture of Jack Fenton flat on his face in a pool of ectoplasm poked out to him. The article, entitled ‘Bird-Brain Fenton Finds Flop in Fountain’ detailed Jack’s heroic battle against the vultures. The three of them had been sitting on the Amity Central Park fountain when Jack decided to remove them. That led to a scramble, a viral video of Jack firing a spectral containment field across the park, scattering the old birds and sending Jack toppling over the rim of the fountain into the murky water. The Amity Park Journal was a rag, most days, but Vlad made a note to send in a donation their way after this.

He smiled at the article and then himself in the mirror, then turned his chin up and double checked the base of foundation he’d put on. Vlad had gotten used to makeup after the accident, even learned a thing or two for hiding the scars he hadn’t had removed. Spending time in front of the mirror had become quite a habit for him after he got out of the hospital.

At fifty-three he'd say he was looking pretty good. The makeup evened out his skin tone and hid some unflattering lines on his forehead, but his skin was clear enough. No awful flare ups, no pimples bubbling up under his skin, he even slept with a humidifier to keep his pores clear.

Vlad picked up the pill bottle under the mirror, cracked it out and took two of the little green pills. He'd been taking them for thirty years now, the polls showing up on his doorstep every month in a little white box with no return address. After everything he saw in the hospital, taking mysterious unmarked pills was a walk in the park. By now the pills were as mundane a part of his life as muting the commercials while he watched the game.

Looking back at himself, Vlad fussed with his hair. It had grown out some and he'd need a haircut soon. He tied it up and then loosened the ponytail until it looked good. The white of his hair made it necessary for him to wear a foundation that was just a shade darker than his skin, to keep him from looking washed out. Appearance was everything for the mayor of Amity Park.

Jack’s picture peeked out at him from the corner of the mirror and Vlad found himself smiling again. Ever since Daniel had gone off to college news like this was a lot more common. Without its ghostly hero Amity Park was settling for his parents, one and a half ghostbusters with about five ghosts per square mile of town.

Vlad’s days were a lot brighter like this. He’d been reelected, totally legally, and with the Fentons and the news overwhelmed with the town’s ghost problems he had all the time in the world for his own work.

Mapping the further reaches of the Ghost Zone, keeping its denizens in line, fixing up his ghost portal, his lab, training Maddie to fetch, cleaning out the attic. Life was boring without Daniel but Vlad wasn’t a busy body and he was no spring chicken, either. A quiet, drama free reign of normalcy suited him just fine, for now.

It did leave him an awful lot of time to feel lonely again. Their rivalry had broken his twenty year streak, but without Daniel there was no one in Vlad’s life, just him and Maddie and the stuff from his attic.

Okay, so it wasn't glamorous. No battles, no adventures. Adventures were for younger men. Mayors weren't adventurers, they were rooted people with important rooted jobs, in their dull rooted towns. And he, floating free above human commitment, was enjoying the show the weird little backwater of Amity Park offered.

Vlad put his briefcase together, picking up the letter from his mother’s estate. The Masters’ family trust sent him one of these every three months or so, needing to be skimmed and mailed back at his earliest convenience. They were boilerplate letters about the status of his mother’s living will, and about all he saw of her after his move to Amity Park.

Excepting, of course, his annual visit home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That was just a month away now, he better book his flight to Milwaukee soon.

He stuffed the letter in a mailbox on his way to the office.   

Thinking about it, he really stuck around for Maddie, and if the people wanted him as their mayor, well, that was their right as citizens. The last election passed him by in a blur, he'd been so bored and sure of losing he didn't bother campaigning at all. As it turned out, his only opponent was a nineteen year old from Casper High whose platform was incoherent but seemed to focus on legalizing pot. And, since Vlad hadn't managed to burn down the town yet, the voters made their choice.

It was a waste, really. Vlad loved getting to direct and dictate but he had no one to push against his will anymore. If he wanted to hang a framed picture of himself in every building in town he could. He could've turned the Amity Central Park into a hunting range, or made a municipal pool out of the runoff where Axion dumped its hazardous waste. Hell, if he wanted to he could make Jack Fenton the chief of police, and just watch that crumble apart.

Vlad sat up at his desk, looking up at the bright grey rain outside his office window. He _could_ make Jack the head of police.

It'd get Jack out of the house, away from Maddie, and would shine a spotlight on him for his next big screw up. And if Jack was apart from her, making a fool of himself all over town and ruining the ghostbusting name that meant so much to her, maybe Maddie would give them both up.

He'd have to give her a little time but once she was ready Vlad couldn't see why she'd turn him down. Just one date, that's all he needed.

He poked the speed dial on his office phone with the nose of his pen, calling the HR rep for City Hall.

“We’re starting a new branch of the police,” he told them, the idea forming as he spoke. “A, uh, Spectral Branch, to combat the ghost problem. Talk to Chief Piggum and you let him know that he'll be moving some men over to a new unit.”

The rest of the afternoon he was on the phone, cutting this deal and greasing that palm, until he had a corner office open in downstairs, three contracts with Axion for gear and equipment in exchange for tax breaks, and two floors of an office building a block away ready to be turned into the home of the Amity Park Spectral Defence Unit. That evening he held a press conference announcing the advent of the APSDU, and adding that they were looking for applicants to head the fledgling agency.

The next morning Jack was in his office, beaming like a schoolboy who'd just aced his big test.

“Jack Fenton,” Vlad strolled across the room towards him. “Y'know, you're just the man I wanted to see. Have a seat.”

“Thanks V-man,” Jack had worn his best jumpsuit, combed his hair carefully the cover his bald spot, and brought his resume, birth certificate, and three binders of his and Maddie’s case files from the last five years. He brought all this up to Vlad’s desk and smacked them down there. He scraped his chair on the ground as he pulled it up to the desk, then leaned a big arm on top of his binders and passed Vlad his resume.

“I bet I don't have to tell you why I’m here,” he smiled brightly, watching Vlad skim his work experience. “Just tell me what you're looking for and I'm you man. I've got case files here like you wouldn't believe, leadership experience, and I come with a deputy director in tow. Maddie’ll love working here with us!”

“Ah, Jack,” Vlad started, tilting his head and offering a pout. “I'm afraid we're only looking for a director right now. It's all there's room for in the town budget.”

“Oh,” Jack pulled at his big chin, knitting his brows. “Then maybe Maddie ought’a be here too, she's just as qualified.”

“Mm,” Vlad nodded, leaning his head on his fist, then picking it up and opening his hand to the empty office. “But she's not here, now is she? Do you think she’s that interested if she's not applying?”

Jack pondered that a moment, then shrugged.

“She wasn't on fire about me applying, to tell you the truth. Someone here at City Hall really rubs her the wrong way, I think.”

The binders wheezed as Jack leaned towards Vlad.

“You don't know who that'd be, do you? I don't want to make the wrong friends here just yet.”

Vlad shook his head, his mouth a tight grim line, drumming his fingers loudly on his desk.

“Getting back to the matter at hand, you’d be willing to take the job of director, without her?”

Jack nodded, his chin jutting out.

“It's the best way to keep the people of Amity Park safe,” his chest puffed out now too. “I've been emailing the mayor’s office for years about starting Spectral Defence work for the town.”

“Yah, I know,” Vlad laughed coyly. “I'm the one who had to read them all.”

Jack burst with a laugh at that, slapping his hand down and knocking one of his binders clean off the desk. While he picked it up, his face red all the way to his ears, Vlad pretended to read his resume some more.

“Well Jack, I've got some good news for you. I know all about your work over the last few years, and I've even seen you in action. You're the man for the job, no doubt about it.”

They shook hands and Vlad told him where to go to get a key card to let him into the underground parking for City Hall. He told Jack they'd have a formal letter mailed to him to sign within the week.

He couldn't blast Jack across the room, but he really wanted to as the big man hugged Vlad and squashed his back out of alignment and then back in. When it was over and he managed to inflate his lungs again Jack was on his way out, still beaming.

It was nice how smoothly things could run without Daniel getting underfoot.

Vlad treated himself to a nice brandy that night, and tried to keep his productivity going by clearing out a little of the attic. He'd been putting it off for months and if Maddie was going to be around his mansion at all he needed to move his old experiments out of sight.

There were boxes and boxes of stuff up there, and not much else. After two castles and a move across country he'd left almost half his possessions in boxes. He started at the back of the attic, floating down what looked like the oldest and best candidates for the trash.

Mostly old books and records, some clothes, boxes of college stuff that had been packed up and not opened again for the better part of thirty years now. How he’d held onto this stuff was beyond him, it should’ve gotten lost or blown up or just thrown out years ago. God only knew what was in some of those boxes.

Maddie was more interested in them than he was, sniffing around and rubbing on the corners of the boxes. She plopped down next to one, turning her big eyes up at it and batting at the old cardboard before flipping over on her belly and starting to chew on it.

“Hey, would you stop that?” Vlad came over and swatted her away, scooping the box up. “Cats don’t eat cardboard, Madeline.”

Maddie bumped his ankle, looking up at the box and meowing. Vlad shook his head and moved the box over to his desk, where she wasn’t allowed. It was a lot heavier than he’d expected, like something bulky was inside. He set it down on the corner of his desk next to his brandy, looking on the top and sides for a date. Nothing, just the old wood grain design printed under the white handles. It could’ve been a part of one of his old offices, now that he thought about it. Maybe part of his dorm from senior year.

He glanced around, seeing Maddie curled up on top of one of the other boxes.

Vlad flipped the lid off the old box, peeking inside to find a stack of books, classics he’d read and misunderstood as a boy, Moby Dick, Dracula, a book of Kafka’s short stories. A textbook from the psych class he’d been taking that awful last semester. Under all that was a beaten copy of Sports Illustrated, which he lifted out clumsily and noticed something tucked inside the centerfold.

He put the magazine down on the desk and opened it up, finding another magazine stuck inside. It was a copy of Blueboy, featuring a spread of men big enough to be linebackers in the nude. The pictures had that eighties lighting, harsh and white with computerized colors that came out smooth, rich and without giving any form to the shapes they filled.

It was hard to look at now. Vlad flipped through a couple pages, seeing pictures he remembered being classier. Overt pornography was one thing, but there was something too simple about this. The men all looked the same, big square faces and boxy shoulders, over muscled and turned to leer at the camera. There was barely any fat on them, any light in their eyes. Vlad missed a certain softness he misremembered in these pictures, a sentiment he didn't quite understand. Softness was good, some femininity in the pictures to make his feelings kosher. But these were hard men, literally, stiff and fake as Ken dolls. Fake, it was all so fake. The men, the lighting, the colors. This was the only copy of Blueboy he'd ever bought and it was just unreal.

That thought gave him some comfort. He'd known for years that he'd only have a passing fancy for men. They were a distraction he hadn't anticipated when he left home for school, it had thrown him for the first two years at least. Meeting Maddie had been a blessing, her presence clearing up his late teenaged confusion.

Other women couldn't do a fraction of what Maddie did for him, in fact they never did much of anything. The closest he'd ever come without thoughts of her was, indeed, with the ugly old magazine in front of him. And that had been meaningless, in the end, as he knew it would be.

Hard to believe that rag had filled him with such excitement the day he bought it. It was his big secret, his first and only real push out of the life he'd been born into. Once the excitement wore off, the pictures becoming familiar and stiff, order returned to his life. Still, what a happy feeling to have the magazine tucked inside his coat that grey fall morning, walking back to his dorm to hide it away, feeling the pages shuffled against his ribs as he walked.

He closed both magazines, leaving Blueboy stuck inside the Sports Illustrated and tossed it in the deep drawer of his desk.

With the books out of the way he saw something else in the bottom of the box. His hand reached in on its own and picked at the tired yellow shirt crumpled along the side of the box. It was his Packer’s t-shirt from 1985, from the day of the accident.

He took the old thing out, looking at the singed collar, the old print running across it in a fine green line. Some stains here and there, loose threads. Vlad set the shirt down, looked in the box and found his jeans from that day. He fished them out and the only thing left in the box was a comic book sitting at the very bottom.

It was in a plastic collector’s sleeve, the cover was bright red. Vlad picked it up, his lips working around in odd knots as he looked at the cover. Two Guys in White, posing back to back with ray guns that looked like they’d been stolen from the Jetsons. Issue #248, Attack of the Ecto-Spiders!

Vlad slipped the comic out of its plastic cover and started reading it. It wasn’t any good, but there was something familiar in the story, as if he’d heard about it but had never read it himself. He read it again and the a third time, and wondered if he'd poured himself too much brandy. The comic felt warm and worn in his hands, the spine soft and pulpy from bending. He hadn't retained almost any of the story, but he didn't care. Something about holding it made him feel good.

He couldn't remember where it had come from for the life of him. It must've been something he got on break, when he had time to read comics instead of doing his work. Or maybe he'd been given it. Comics weren't a part of his life at home, far from it, so Maddie must've given it to him.

That made some sense, though he didn't recall her ever liking comics much either. Still, just holding it made him feel a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the brandy and that was a feeling he knew must mean Maddie was involved.

Vlad opened the deep drawer of his desk to hide the comic away in there, and found the other magazine open to a centerfold of naked linebackers. He dropped the comic inside, feeling dirty all of a sudden, and snatched up the copy of Blueboy.

Balling it up he crushed it between his hands and then lit it up, leaving him with a fistful of ash.

He didn't need that kind of magazine any more. Maddie would come back to him and he’d have a real second chance.


	2. 02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Vlad do lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little song inspired by Jack's diet.   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEUw1t8RcZ0

**02**

**Present**

* * *

 

Five different friend requests, seven Facebook messages, twelve email chains and countless letters thrown out over the years. And Jack Fenton still thought it a good idea to invite Vlad to lunch every day for a month. 

His plan wasn't working quite the way he'd hoped, and Vlad was starting to think he should've offered the job to Maddie instead. Rather than driving the Fentons apart, Jack’s new job was forcing him and Vlad together. He'd made up so many excuses to get out of lunch already that he couldn't think of anything that day. 

“Let me look at my schedule, I'll give you a call.”

Of course he wasn't going to call, or join Jack or anything like that. But he needed Jack out of his hair. Jack couldn't take a hint and Vlad couldn't sour their relationship. If both Fentons united against him his plan would be over before it even began.

Like it or not he had to keep Jack around, and keep things civil.

Vlad spent the morning reading over an agricultural survey dealing with Axion’s effect on the more rural parts of town. It was dry stuff but he had to bone up. The hicks were coming into town to protest Axion introducing noxious chemicals into the ecosystem. Thankfully the mayor’s office was a third party to the whole deal, and he wouldn't have to explain to the farmers that their corn harvest was much less important than the multimillion dollar laboratory and its thousands of local jobs.

Reading about the corn and the soil and the soil’s impact on the corn and how the corn prices were down but pesticide prices were up and if the corn was going to make anything at market they'd need to plant more corn but the only corn field left available was turning black from the hazardous waste being deposited nearby. So what was going to happen to the farmers and the corn?

His phone rang and Vlad picked up, getting an earful immediately.

“V-man! You getting hungry? That place on Lutz and Warren has great burgers, we should try it out today!”

Vlad rolled his eyes, clearing his throat and reaching for an excuse.

“Sorry Jack I can't I've got to…” Shuck some corn. “I uh…”

Vlad shuffled the papers on his desk, looking for a corn free excuse.

“I can get you a to-go bag, it's no big deal. But you gotta try this place, V-man. It's right up your alley.” 

“Okay, yah sure,” Vlad said, distracted by the mess he was making of the papers now. “I can do that.”

“Oh, so we're on? I'll be upstairs in a minute!”

Jack hung up and Vlad stared blankly at the phone, his mouth falling open.

A minute later Jack was in his office, big and orange and just pleased as punch that his best friend was finally joining him for lunch.

So Vlad got to choose between the corn reports and lunch with Jack Fenton. And he'd take a decent meal and a little annoyance over more corn reports.

“Ready to go, V-man?” Jack smiled at him goofily.

“Yyah,” Vlad hesitated, fussing with his wallet and keys. Now that Jack was here he wasn't sure if it was worth it. His stomach growled impatiently and Jack chuckled.

“Man, you sound hungrier than me,” he came around the desk and picked Vlad up by his shoulder. Vlad staggered a little, ready to give any excuse for staying but before he could open his mouth Jack was walking them out of the office and towards the stairs leading to the lobby. 

Vlad's mouth twisted up into a number of shapes as they walked. He tried to find somewhere he could slip away and turn invisible. Jack was talking.

“I can't believe how busy they keep you here, y'know the last mayor spent half his time golfing out at Amity Central Park. But you, you're here putting in work like crazy, huh? The weather, Axion, and now my department? I don't think Amity Park’s had a better mayor since we moved here, Vladdie!”

A big hand patted him on the back and Vlad shook his head.

“It's not that hard a job, really. Anyone with half a brain could do it.”

“Yeah? Well no wonder you're doing so well, you were always the smartest guy I knew.”

Jack's big goofy smile hadn't changed in thirty years, though his crow's feet made it look a little less goofy. He’d aged well, Vlad admitted. His laugh lines, his fat boyish cheeks, the little blue eyes. It was a happy face, a face the rest of the world smiled back at. 

Vlad smiled to himself, smug, and shrugged off Jack’s compliment. 

“Thank you Jack, you’re right.”

Jack barked out a laugh.

“There’s that humility.”

Vlad gave him a tight smile, his brow knotting. 

“I don’t think I can make a habit of this, Jack.” They were headed down the block, Vlad having to patter along faster than usual to keep up with Jack. How could such a fat man with such little legs move faster than him? Only Jack Fenton would break the laws of physics just to be a pain in Vlad’s ass. “Like you say, they do keep me real busy.”

Jack nodded, shrugging his big shoulders. 

“Maybe I’ll pack us a picnic sometime,” His goofball smile was back. Vlad kneaded his forehead. 

“I mean this’ll be our only lunch, Jack.”

“I know, but a nice picnic won’t kill you,” Jack stopped outside the Snedeker Grill, elbowing Vlad. “Let yourself have a little fun, Mr. Mayor.”

He pushed open the door, inviting Vlad in ahead of him. 

“Maybe try some of that golfing, if picnics aren’t your thing.”

They got a table in the back and Vlad opened his menu and propped it up between him and Jack. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jack needed him to read the menu aloud for him, or even cut up his food once it came. Their waitress came over after a minute, popping her gum, and asked what’d they want?

“I’ll have the number eight with a fried egg on top.” They said in unison. 

The waitress raised her penciled eyebrows as Jack and Vlad exchanged a look, then Jack burst with laughter and Vlad’s hands clawed at the tabletop. 

“Nothing changes in thirty years, huh?” Jack beamed. 

“Actually, I’ll have a kale salad.” Vlad handed his menu to the waitress, his stomach protesting.

“Aw,” Jack handed his menu to her and she walked off. “Gotta be trim for the news cameras huh?”

Vlad shrugged, closing his eyes and rolling them back. 

“We’re not getting any younger, it doesn’t hurt to be healthy.”

Jack nodded, leaning his chin on his hand. 

“Ghosthunting melts the calories off, that’s my secret.”

“Oh yah?” Vlad made a face at that and Jack reddened. 

“Well, mostly.”

Vlad smiled at that, letting Jack dangle and trying to memorize the look on his face. 

“Okay, smart guy,” Jack recovered, hitting his vowels hard to mimic Vlad’s accent. His bushy brows arched at Vlad. “But let’s see you fire the Fenton Netter and not get knocked on your butt by the kickback.”

“The Fenton Netter?”

“Oh!” Jack slapped his hands flat on the table. “V-man, it’s our latest breakthrough in ghost containment! I’m already thinking we’ll need three or four for the SDU.”

Jack started explaining and it was a pain but it killed some time. He doodled the Netter on his napkin, making it look fairly simple. A modified bazooka that shot a net that could incapacitate a ghost. Vlad made a mental note of it, knowing such a thing could land him in a real pickle if Maddie or her son used it. 

Their food came and Vlad realized the mistake he’d made. Jack’s burger was exactly what he needed today, a quarter pound patty rare with onions, tomato, a courtesy lettuce leaf and cheddar melting down the side of the burger. Under the top bun he could see the fried egg oozing over two strips of thick cut bacon.

And in front of Vlad was a plate of dark, sandy kale. Jack, being Jack, put the burger down his throat in short order, not noticing Vlad’s needy glances until he was almost done. 

“Do you want a bite?”   
“No, I’m fine.”

“C’mon, one bite. You’re missing out, Vlad.”

Vlad shook his head, powering through some kale to try and distract himself. Jack mumbled something and put the last bite of his burger on Vlad’s plate. 

“Take it,” Jack started putting a hurting on his fires, and Vlad wondered how long his big fat heart had left before it popped. “You're getting skinnier and skinnier.”

“You always were a mother hen,” Vlad heard himself say, before trying to look reluctant as he wolfed down the last bite of burger. 

Jack sat back and nodded, his chin poking out again.    
“Someone’s gotta look out for you.”

Vlad snorted loudly at that, pushing his salad aside. 

“Hardly. I’m the mayor, Jack, I do the looking out, yah? Everyone in town relies on me to run Amity Park smoothly, and I haven’t let them down yet.”

Jack blew a raspberry. 

“You’re campaigning to me, V-man? I volunteered at the last election, you know.”

“You did?” Vlad tilted his head. He thought of Jack so little it took him by surprise. The image of him buzzing around the polling place in the community center in a Vote Vlad shirt was pretty amusing.

Lunch that day was the most attention he’d paid to Jack in a while, the longest the two of them had been together in a long time. It was easier sitting there than he’d imagined. “You and Maddie?”

Jack shook his head, making a face. 

“She stays out of politics now, I don’t really know why. Something about it bugs her these days, I guess. Gets her stressed out. And with the kids gone we’re not around the school board or anything, that’s part of it too.”

“She’d better get ready for that to change. I mean, think of all the political events the head of the SDU has to attend. Press conferences, fundraising dinners, really everything’s a photo opp today.”

Jack rolled his eyes at that and scoffed, handing his plate up to the waitress when she came back to their table. 

“How was everything? Liked the burger, huh?” She nudged Jack, who gave her a thumb’s up. “And did you want a box for that, sir?”

Her head tilted Vlad’s way and he shook his.    
“No, just bring the check.”

“I don’t like the cameras,” Jack continued, after she’d left with their plates. “I had to tell some newsies to take a hike last week when we found them snooping around our trash. It was lucky for them we found them because they almost set off the whole outdoor defense system. And, yeah, I guess we don’t need fried journalists running around here, huh?”

“Oh gosh no,” Vlad shook his head. “A shame, though. Your systems should be demonstrated more often, I think.”

How many videos and headlines could Jack Fenton fill with the blunders of his technological wonders? Vlad was eager to find out. 

“A public demonstration of all your technology, now that would be something.”

Jack shook his head, crossing his arms as the waitress dropped off their check. 

“No can do, V-man. The Fenton home arsenal is Maddie’s pride and joy, she decides when we go public with it.”

Vlad fished out his Debit card and stuck it in the book with their bill, not looking at what lunch had cost. 

“Should I put in?” Jack reached for his own wallet. 

“No,” Vlad closed the book and left it on the edge of their table. The sooner this was done the better. “You know, that doesn’t seem fair to you, Jack. Their your inventions.”

“What I invent I do what I want with,” Jack rolled his hands in a vague gesture. “Maddie does what she wants with what she makes.”

“Very egalitarian… But what about what you build together?” Vlad watched Jack carefully, waiting for a tick or a glance or a fidget that could tell him he'd found a nerve. “I mean, if that's how you do things wouldn't you have to fight for the patent?”

Jack chuckled, shaking his head.

“Vlad we’re married. We fight over who ate all the Greek yogurt. The machines, we just flip a coin for that.” He hummed, watching the waitress come over and pick up their check. “Being married makes fighting easier, anyway. Even if someone’s on the couch it's not permanent. That's the whole idea, right?”

“I wouldn't know, Jack.” He'd stopped looking for a nerve and focused instead on not ticking or glancing or fidgeting.

“Ah, sorry.” Jack’s shoulders sank. 

“Think nothing of it,” Vlad smiled thinly. 

“Maybe lunch isn't the best way to do this,” Jack allowed. The waitress brought Vlad’s card back and told them to have a great day. 

“What’s that, Jack?” Vlad dicked around with his wallet.

“Well I,” Jack shrugged, getting up from the table. “Y’know, I wanted to get together with you again. How long’s it even been since we did this?”

Vlad would ballpark it to at least ten years, when he’d first dropped by Amity Park to pester Daniel over something or other.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” He replied, getting up and pulling his coat on.

Jack stretched, then sighed and put a hand on his stomach. 

“Well listen, if you wanna learn about the home defenses you should just come by for dinner some time.”

“Why don't you ask Madeline,” he said, knowing her answer already. “And then get back to me.”

Jack brightened up as they walked out.

“I will! It'll be fun, I'll see if I can't find our old year book.”

Vlad scoffed at the thought.

“I'll spend the night laughing at that stupid mullet of yours,” he assured Jack.

“I tell you,” Vlad could hear Jack's smile in his voice, “thirty years and nothing’s changed.”

“Oh Jack,” Vlad said. “You'd be surprised.”


	3. 03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some college kids talk about stuff in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just play this on a loop while you read this, ya'll.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcReVeEsvzY

**03**

**1984**

* * *

 

“No, I am telling you, I am not Egon Spengler.” Maddie put up her hands as they walked out of their third viewing of Ghostbusters.

“Maddie sh-shut up,” Pregaming the movie had been a great idea, apart from the fact that Vlad couldn’t hold his liquor. Just a few beers in and he was leaning heavily against Jack. “You, you definitely collect sp-” he burped, “Spores molds and fungus.”

“He’s right Maddie, I know where you keep them.”

  
“Dick!” Maddie laughed and pushed Vlad into Jack, trying to be playful but since Vlad weighed about as much as a paper doll he bounced off Jack’s chest. 

Jack caught an arm around him and held him up.    


“If I’m anyone I’m Annie Potts,” Maddie put her hair up, twisting her big Dolly Parton curls back behind her head. “I just need that short hair. Or, no, Dana, I’m Dana. Sojourner Weaver.”

“Oh no,” Vlad giggled, hanging onto Jack’s arm. “No no no no no, you’re not Ripley. You’re, you’re Bill Murray.”

He pointed and fell apart giggling, and that got Maddie. She laughed along with him, and Jack tilted his head to the side. 

“I wanna be Hudson,” He said, carrying Vlad along as Maddie led them down the hill away from the theater and back towards campus. 

“What?”

“What?”   


The two of them looked up at him. 

“He’s cool!” Jack said, eyebrows jumping. “Why can’t I be Hudson?”

“You’re white, Jack.” Vlad turned his drunken red face up to Jack. Maddie shook her head, taking Vlad’s shoulder and giving him a little shake. 

“No, wrong. He’s already Ray, he can’t be Hudson.”

Vlad’s eyes bulged out of his head and he pointed up at Jack, laughing again. 

“You  _ are  _ Ray!”

“Totally Ray.”

“Who’m I?” Vlad patted Jack’s arm eagerly, looking from one of them to the other. “Who’m I?”

“You are Vinz,” Maddie took Vlad in her arms, putting him in a loose headlock and ruffling his spiky black hair. “Vinz Clortho,”   


Vlad kept giggling away and Jack joined in, putting his big hands on Vlad’s shoulders and shaking him as they all quoted together. 

“‘Keymaster of Gozer, Lord of the Sabulia, are you the gatekeeper?’”

Vlad was lying on the dorm’s scratchy old couch by the time he sobered up some. Maddie and Jack were with him, Vlad leaning his back along Jack’s side. The two of them were fighting over something he hadn’t been paying attention to. 

“You keep phoning it in with your math, Jack, you're gonna regret it.”

Jack wasn't much of a drinker but he could take down a lot more than these two without getting half as drunk. He was a little headachy and irritable now. 

“What are you talking about? I'm not failing the damn class, okay? I don't ace every proof but who does?”

Maddie snorted and finished her beer. Vlad had lost track of how deep they all were, he just knew he didn't want any more. 

“But if it screws up your, if your chemistry is wrong what then?” Maddie asked.

Jack shrugged, eyes wide and then spread his hands out in front of his face.

“Poof! No more eyebrows, Maddie.”

Maddie hissed out a laugh that made her sound like a split tire.

“We're scientists, we've gotta take chances.” Vlad said, then sniffed loudly, trying to take his mind off his drunk stomach. “How're we gonna learn if we don't try, Maddie?”

“I'm just saying you could be more careful. Math’s important.” Maddie leaned back against Jack’s belly.

“Yah and it's a pain in the ass,” Vlad leaned his head against Jack’s shoulder, “Back me up.”

“He's right Maddie.” Jack leaned back and scrunched Vlad into the armrest. Vlad groaned and pet his sloshing stomach. The three of them on the couch was a bit much, Vlad realized. He was smushed onto less than a third of the couch, thanks to Jack’s bulk. 

Vlad sat up carefully, turning to see Jack leaning against the back of the couch with Maddie sitting across his legs. 

“Move over,” Vlad pawed as Jack’s side, then lay out across part of his belly. His back was against Jack’s hips, his shoulder against Maddie’s thigh. He laid there with his eyes closed and felt someone’s fingers start combing through his hair.

“How are you, V-man?” Maddie asked.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Vlad warned, lifting his hands weakly.

“Vlad I swear to God if you boot in my lap, I'll chuck you right into the river.” Jack swiped at Vlad’s ribs, making him grumble again.

“Don't hit me and I won't, geez!” Vlad fidgeted and got comfortable again. “What were we talking about?”

Maddie and Jack both made vague sounds. Vlad hummed in response, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m Egon,” Vlad said after a moment. “I’m the tall weird one, here.”

“Sorry but I've got a few good inches on you, V-man,” Jack rubbed a hand across Vlad’s shoulder. 

Vlad shook his head. 

“Your bones are too big, that’s not fair. I should be the tallest.”

“Humble, humble,” Maddie kept running her fingers through his hair. “You’re scrawny, Vlad. And you suck at math too.”

“Maddie’s a nerd,” Vlad pointed limply at her, and Jack joined in, ‘oohing.’ Maddie set her head back and laughed. 

“Madd-ie’s a nerd,” Jack chanted at her, Vlad joining in. “Madd-ie’s a nerd, Madd-ie’s a nerd.”

Maddie laughed, then waved them both away. 

“Don’t make me laugh, I might pee.”   


“How many did you have?” Vlad peeled one eye open to look up at her. 

Maddie looked at her hands for a moment then gave up trying to count and shrugged. “What do I care, my thesis is done.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jack poured the last of his beer down the hatch. 

“Gimme some,” Vlad put his hand up and Jack passed the beer down to him. He toasted Maddie and got the last tiny gulp of beer. “Backwash.”

He tossed the can under the couch and Jack pat his belly. 

“That’s love, V-man.”

Vlad chuckled at that, then knit his brows and rubbed them with his hand. 

“Why would you say that, Jack?”

Maddie and Jack both looked down at him. 

Vlad looked back at them, color draining from his face. 

“What? You’re looking at me like I’m an alien.”

“Vlad what are you talking about?” One of them said it but Vlad couldn’t tell which one. 

Sometimes they did that. He lost focus and one became the other. Jack’s joy came alive in Maddie’s eyes, Maddie’s mind ticked away under Jack’s mullet. And Vlad, well, he guessed he was just along for the ride, right?

“I mean, who just says ‘love’ like that? You don’t throw ‘love’ around.”   


Jack puzzled over that, and Maddie sunk her fingers deeper in Vlad’s hair, massaging his scalp. 

“I like it,” Maddie said. “Why not say ‘love’ all the time?”   


“Because,” Vlad huffed, knocking her hand out of his hair so he could think. “Because it loses its meaning if you say it all the time.”

Maddie shook her head, humming. 

“Disagree. Love’s not like that, Vlad.”   


“I don’t know,” Jack started. “Vlad’s got a point. Love’s special, you shouldn’t say you love  _ everything _ .”

“Right!” Vlad poked at Jack’s chest with his finger, then spread his hand out there, then let it drop. “So why’d you say that?”

“Because I  _ do _ love you guys. Keep up, V-man.” Jack got an arm around Maddie’s shoulders and Vlad’s middle, pulling them both up to kiss the tops of their heads.

Maddie giggled, hanging onto Jack’s shoulders. Vlad wheezed, Maddie’s thigh squashing against his face when Jack set them back down. 

“Aw Jack,” Maddie kissed Jack’s cheek, Vlad watched from under her leg. 

Jack blushed.

“I’d… It isn't...” Vlad mumbled, looking for what he was trying to say. He shouldn't say anything. This wasn't about him anymore, he was just stuck in between them. Watching people like this was hard for him.

Mother wasn't an affectionate woman, his nannies weren't affectionate women, the butlers, the drivers, the groundskeepers. The Masters were cold people, and everyone around them knew it.  And here was the heir of the Masters fortune, lying across another man’s lap with a woman all but sitting on his face, plastered and pretending he wasn't a Masters.

“Lemme up,” Vlad pushed Maddie off him and wheezed his way up again. Jack put a hand on his back to help him. 

Vlad stood, hanging onto the arm of the couch to help him walk.

He wandered down the hall to the bathroom. Everything in there was covered in beige tile, except the toilet, sink and the shower stall in the corner. Vlad peed and then washed his hands and stood in front of the sink staring at himself in the mirror. It was hard for him to keep still but after a little bit of focusing he got a good clear look at himself.

Clearer than usual, he thought, looking past just his eyes to the fine grey tip of each eyelash. He moved back and forth, looking at the cut of his cheekbones, his pores, the pokes of stubble on his chin. Looking at his eyes he saw each different shade in his iris, the specks of black around his dilated pupils. 

He shut his eyes and leaned back from the mirror, rubbing his head. His eyes stung from all the staring and he felt queasy again. Seeing himself like this was too much right now. Vlad turned out of the bathroom and down the hall, out of the dorm.

“I need some air,” he said over his shoulder. Vlad walked out passed the quad and down the hill that dipped down to a narrow branch of river. In the last four years he'd come here so many times, to think or kill time or just be alone. It was a place just for him, in a world he realized was a lot colder than he’d thought.

He sat down in the grass, then laid out on his back and looked up at the still night sky.

Overhead the bowl of stars was dull and grey blue, a few white pinpricks making Orion’s Belt, the rest of the hero faded out in the blue. Stars didn't mean much to Vlad but lying there with them helped him feel still and cold and not so drunk.

He sighed, seeing his breath in front of him. He wore no coat, no jacket, just a ratty old t-shirt he'd had on for the last week as he finished up his finals. Sleep, a shower, a pot of coffee and a decent breakfast would straighten him out. Some alone time wouldn't hurt either.

One more semester, after the New Year, and then he’d be done with school. That didn’t feel real at all. 

He heard footsteps coming down across the grass towards him. Vlad picked his head up and found Maddie wrapped in a sweater heading down the hill. She had a blanket tucked under her arm and pulled around her shoulders. 

She came up to him and sat down, pulled the blanket off her and threw it over him. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Vlad sat up. 

Maddie scooched over to bundle up with him under the blanket. Vlad sighed and started picking at the grass by his leg. 

“You okay? You acted nuts in there.” She looked at him, eyes still red but focused now. Vlad’s head bobbled side to side, then he nodded and tucked the blanket in tighter around himself. 

“Jack gets to me, I don’t know.”

Maddie hummed, nodding and looking out over the black water ahead of them. Across the riverlet was the edge of a cul-de-sac that ended in an empty driveway and a lamp at the top of a telephone pole. The orange light from the bulb played on the softly rippling water.

“That ‘I love you’ stuff,” Maddie said, “It scared me to death when he said it the first time. And he kept saying it, I mean, I really thought he was in over his head. But I gave him a chance and it started to make sense more. Y'know? That's just Jack Fenton.”

Vlad shook his head. 

“I introduced you two, Maddie. I know who Jack Fenton is, I know who Jack is better than you do.”

“Oh yeah? What’s his favorite color?”

“Orange.”

“Favorite song?”   


Vlad thought a moment.

“The one,” Vlad started strumming an invisible guitar, bobbing his head as he sang in a forced scratchy voice, “‘I come from the land of the ice and snow, with the midnight sun and the hot springs flow!’”

Maddie gave her split tire laugh again and put her arms around Vlad, holding them together under the blanket. She was solid and warm next to him.

“Okay, okay, you’re right. You know Jack Fenton pretty damn well.”   


“I just can’t do that, that  _ stuff _ he does. The ‘love you's’, the kisses? It’s so, so…” Vlad sighed, he couldn’t decide quite what it was. 

“Scary, huh?”

“No, not at all, Maddie.” Vlad stared at the river now, feeling Maddie’s cheek turn against his shoulder as she looked at him. “It's great. You can just look over and watch him being so happy. And, and you two, y’know sometimes I can’t even tell you apart. You’re gonna grow up and get married and god only knows. Move away and, and fight ghosts while I’m stuck here.”

“God,” Maddie’s arms tightened around him. “You’re bitter, Vlad.”

“So what,” His needley voice cracked and his blushed hard. Running both hands through his hair he tried to shake the feeling off. “It’s just no good being in the middle of all that.”

“You’re in the middle,” Maddie nodded against his shoulder, leaning her head down so her hair fell over his chest. “But you’re part of it, y’know? We both love you.”

Vlad started to say something, then stopped. He looked at the lonely driveway in the orange light, the dark water underneath, the wet grass and then the blanket, and Maddie’s long curly hair on his chest. 

“Maddie,” His voice was clear in the empty air. “I’d marry you right now if you’d say yes.”

Maddie shook her head, then cupped Vlad’s temple and kissed his cheek. 

“I’m not gonna marry you.” She said. “That’s not what you need.”

“No,” Vlad held her hand over his shoulder, his gut churning at the thought that she’d let go. “I mean it, Maddie. I’m ready right now.”

“What about Jack?”

“He, he’d be my best man. Or yours, I don’t know.”

Maddie shook her head again. 

“Maid of honor. He’d be my maid of honor.”

Vlad snorted, smiling against the cold. 

“Jack’s hardly a maid of anything.”   


Maddie laughed and hung on tighter. Her hands were strong and it hurt a little but Vlad didn’t mind. 

“Exactly. He’s a big piece of man, is what he is.” 

Vlad laughed with her, then sighed out a cloud of steam. 

“I can see why you like him, I guess.”

“I see why you like him too.” Maddie turned her purple eyes up at him. 

Vlad blushed harder, shaking his head. 

“Maddie, c’mon, it’s not that way.”

“Okay, well, I know why he likes you.” She tried a different angle, her fingers in his hair again. “You’re smart and you’re funny, and when you want to you can be really sweet. And you know him better than anyone, so there’s that.”

“There’s that,” Vlad went back to picking at the grass between his legs. “But all that love stuff, it’s not for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a Masters.” He turned his head to look at her, straining his eyes to see her so close in the dark. “I need to have some kid who’ll carry on the family name. An heir, a legacy. That whole thing.”

“So you’d marry me because I could have kids?”

“No! Of course not, ughh,” He plucked at the grass some more and then stuck his fingers down into the dirt, feeling the cold crumbly earth and the thin chains of grass snaking over the ground. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I love you, Maddie, I don’t think about it like that.”

“And Jack’s just our friend.”

“Well, he’s  _ your  _ boyfriend.” Vlad rolled his eyes. “Don’t pretend like it’s any different, Maddie. He’s in love with you. We’re friends--”

“Best friends,” Maddie reminded him. 

“ _ Friends _ , but that doesn’t change the fact he’s attracted to you.”

“Vlad, honey, I’ve got news for you.” Maddie chuckled against his shoulder. 

Vlad covered his face with both hands at the very thought of it, shaking his head behind them. 

Maddie watched him, smiling, and then grinned when she heard him laughing away behind his hands. 

“No, no,” Vlad giggled. “No no no, you’re a liar, Maddie, a bald-faced liar.” 

Maddie hummed and gave him a squeeze. 

“Face it, Masters. We'll take you, spiky hair, khakis and all. You’ve got us.”

Vlad kept laughing and laughing, until Maddie wasn’t sure the noise he made was laughter anymore. She reached up and moved one of his hands away from his face, finding his eyes wet.

He stared at her, wide eyed, then hiccuped out, “Mother’s gonna be so disappointed.” 

Vlad sank against her, pulling the blanket up to his chin. 

“That’s okay,” Maddie moved her arm so she cradled his head, holding him against her chest. “You’ve got us.”

Vlad sat there being held, then sniffed loudly and sat up and slid the blanket off his shoulders. 

“You two’re still normal, at the end of the day. Jack’s so, he’s, if he’s with you he’s normal. And, and people like him, he can be with anyone and people’ll like him. If I was with him I’d have heart attack, Maddie.  Mother’d never speak to me again. I can’t marry anyone like that.”

“Okay,” Maddie watched his intently and hung onto his shoulder. “Maybe not. But, y’know, there’s plenty of people who just don’t get married.”

Vlad looked at her, his mouth opening slowly. 

“I can’t,” He told her. “I can’t just walk away like that. Mother’s paid for all this and she, she’s my mom, Maddie. She does love me. And I want her to be proud of her son.”

“Yeah but are  _ you _ gonna love anyone?”

Vlad shrugged, looking away. Her hands cupped his face and turned him back to her. 

“Look at you,” his reflection was cloudy in her big purple eyes, and he was glad the stinging clarity from before was gone. Now all he could see was the light that came on when she looked at him. “How could she not be proud of you?”

“She’s got on ‘okay’ son.” Vlad warbled. “I’ve done enough to be okay.”

“I’d be proud of a son like you.” Maddie pulled the blanket back up over his shoulders. “I’m proud to just be your friend.”

So they were just friends. Vlad thought it but didn’t say it, he knew if he did he’d probably piss her off and then make himself sick. He nodded at her, closing his eyes and chewing his lip so he wouldn’t cry any more. 

Maddie hugged him. “I love you Vlad.”

Vlad believed it. He wished he didn’t but he knew she was telling the truth. So he told the truth back.

“I love you too, Maddie. Please don’t leave me.”

Maddie hummed, wrapping him up tighter in her arms. 

“Tall order, Masters. You gonna hold up your end?”

Vlad nodded, smiling through his nauseous paranoia. 

“I’ll never stop loving you, I promise.”

They held each other for a long time, watching the black river flow out away from them. Then Vlad shivered. 

“Let’s go in,” he said, “I miss Jack.”

Maddie got up and helped Vlad up after her, wrapping the blanket around him like cape.

“I bet Jack misses you.” She said.


	4. 04

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad has a hard time at the local Marriott.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day y'all! Enjoy this, the longest and funnest chapter thus far. We lean way into the noir vibes this chapter, so here's something set the mood.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PKzz81m5c

**04**

**Present**

* * *

 

Maddie Fenton hadn't stopped glaring at him since she and Jack walked into the Amity Park View Marriott. She probably thought he’d pulled some strings to get them sat at the same table. Her mistake, then. It was a dinner for Jack and the SDU to celebrate the successful end of their first quarter, Jack’s spot at the table was the best seat in the whole Marriott ballroom. And where else was the mayor supposed to sit at a dinner for his new head of Spectral Defense? Across the room where she wouldn't have to see him? He was at Jack’s left and Maddie was on Jack’s right, so at least she had her big fat husband to obscure her view of Vlad.

He leaned back a little in his seat so he couldn't see her. 

What'd she expect? Was he supposed to try and play footsie with her under the table? Or slip her a note behind Jack’s back like a schoolboy?

“And I'd like to thank Mayor Masters,” a big hand came down on Vlad’s shoulder. He looked up at Jack. The head of the SDU was muttering to himself, going over the speech he'd give once the MC finished welcoming everyone.

“Still practicing, Jack?” Vlad nudged his hand off. 

Jack quieted and nodded, a frown stretching across his face. 

“I'm new to public speaking.” He was ruffling his napkin to within an inch of its little life, rubbing the cloth thin with his thumbs. “Got any advice?”

Vlad hummed.

“Did you have any dairy today?” Jack shook his head. “Try it next time, it’s good for your voice.”

Jack kept worrying with his napkin, nodding his head and breathing heavier now that the MC was finishing up a light roast of the fire chief. 

“Knock ‘em dead, Jack.” Maddie reached for his hand, squeezing it as Jack squirmed, listening to his introduction. 

He stood up, leaned over to give Maddie a quick kiss on the cheek, and then lumbered up the steps at the side of the big plastic stage towards the podium. 

Jack cleared his throat, tugging at his collar where it held tight to his fat neck. He smiled behind the mic, squinting with the stage lights in his eyes. It took him a moment to fish out his little reading glasses and set them on his nose. Then he cleared his throat again and spoke haltingly.

“Hi everyone, and welcome to the Amity Park View Marriott. I'm Jack Fenton, director of Amity Park’s Spectral Defense Unit,” golf applause murmured through the room. Maddie and the Unit’s table cheered. Vlad put his hands together, sitting back and watching Maddie while she watched Jack. 

She was wearing a black dress with a topaz scarf with swirly gold embroidery on it. There was a silver bracelet on her wrist and she had her scarf wrapped around her shoulders and tied in a knot in the middle of her chest. He could see the wavy pattern of little black beads across the bust of the dress. 

Without her long, long gloves on Vlad got a good look at her toned arms.

“We're here tonight to celebrate me, and you. You all,” Jack was peering down his nose at his flashcards, his neck bulging out around his chin. “And the hard work we've done to make Amity Park a safer place for all. I've been head of the SDU for four months now and the work I've done with all of you has been phenomenal.”

Vlad rolled his eyes, plucking his napkin from where it was folded in his plate and tossing it in his lap. Jack’s speech was amatuer but the room was quiet and patient with him. Everyone knew Jack Fenton could run at the mouth, as long as he didn't have to think about it too much. 

Jack cleared his throat and looked over the crowd, smiling dumbly at the table full of SDU agents.

“Raise a glass,” he said, loosening up, “to our men and women on the team.”

The audience toasted to them and one of the agents hooped and hollered. That got a laugh that rumbled through the room.

“In four months we've caught and contained fifteen free floating vapors, two scale-six poltergeists, and we polished off the last of the phantom wall weasels in Casper High School. So let's have a nice night, everybody. And let's please give a big hand to the man behind all of this, Mayor Vlad Masters!”

The room applauded and Vlad half stood, waving to the audience before sitting again. He hung onto his napkin so it didn't fall out of his lap.

“And yeah, eat, drink and be merry guys.” Jack smiled and pocketed his flash cards. He stepped down to more applause. Maddie stood up as she clapped, and so did the table of SDU agents. Vlad kept his eyes on Maddie, standing up himself and clapping loudly. 

Jack came down from the stage blushing, and pecked Maddie on the cheek again. He caught Vlad’s shoulder and shook him, getting a look in his eyes that told Vlad he wanted to hug him. Vlad cleared his throat and brushed Jack’s hand off him and sat back down. 

“Great job honey,” Maddie clapped him on the back when they were seated again, and the rest of the table hummed. 

“So how  _ do  _ you trap a poltergeist?” The town's treasury secretary asked. Both Fentons lit up. 

Vlad held his phone under the table, poking at his screen and trying to play Two Dots. A City Hall intern had put him onto it and he'd burned through twenty levels in the last couple days. But now his angle was wrong and he botched the next level, getting zero stars.

He picked his head up and tuned out the rest of the table, looking around for something to do. Usually he was, or made himself, the center of attention at these things, but he didn't have the energy tonight. And with Maddie already glaring daggers at him it wasn't worth it to act big. 

He looked across the room and noticed a bald man in a black suit, black tie, wearing coke bottle glasses. The suit fit perfectly, looked brand new.  His shirt was hard bright white.

Tonight was a fancy dinner but it  _ was  _ only for government and municipal employees of Amity Park, not dinner at the White House. Then again, a new black suit stood out a lot less than even an old white suit. 

Vlad ignored the man in black and turned back to the table, listened for a few minutes about the levels of ionization in the conductive rope that went into making a solid ghost net. After three or four minutes of that he excused himself. He noted that Maddie sat up a little straighter when he left.

Vlad’s first stop was the bar. Gin and tonic in hand he wandered around the room, making a circuit of hellos and handshakes, before killing some time back at the bar. The Green Bay game was on so he stuck around to watch. 

They were 24-0, Green Bay. Vlad munched on some nuts, watching the little bar tv. The bartender was standing aside, his back against the countertop, following the game.

“Ccsh,” A voice at Vlad’s side hissed, “Geez, not looking too good.”

“Yah,” Vlad watched the Washington’s quarterback lean over to adjust his knee brace, knocking it into alignment with his fist. “RG3, there, he’s pretty darn good, though. Once that leg’s healed he’ll be useful.”

The man next to him snorted. 

“Yeah, useful enough to get traded.”

Vlad looked over his shoulder at the man in black with the coke bottle glasses. He was holding an empty beer bottle and smiling at Vlad. 

“You from Green Bay?” Coke Bottles asked.

Vlad shook his head. 

“Elm Grove. Just a Packers fan.”

“So how’d you end up in Amity Park?”

Vlad ran a hand through his hair, trying not to whinge at this line of questioning. Every so often one of these guys would show up, but they didn’t try getting buddy buddy with him. And they didn’t wear fresh black suits or try to fit in.

“Came here for a job. You’re from Washington?” Vlad tilted his head, still leaning against the bar. 

Coke Bottles nodded, pretending to finish his drink. He reached across the bartop and plopped it in the trash. The bartender glanced over at them, then back to the game. 

“Langley Park,” Coke Bottles nodded again, smiling a ten a penny smile at Vlad. 

Vlad knocked down the last of his gin and tonic, tossed his plastic cup in the trash, and stepped away from the bar. 

“Well have a good night.” He walked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Mr. Masters,” Coke Bottles followed him. “A word?”

Jack looked across the ballroom, expecting to see Vlad wandering back to their table from the men’s room. Instead he found him over near the bar, talking to a bald man in black. There was something hanging on the bald man’s hip, under his nice new suit jacket.

Jack watched them, nudging Maddie as the treasury secretary's husband kept telling a long joke. 

“Is that guy packing?” Jack whispered to his wife, nodding to Vlad and his friend. 

Maddie leaned across Jack for a good look, then nodded. 

“Who is that guy, Jack?” She whispered back.

“Don’t know. Mayor’s new bodyguard?”

Vlad seemed stiff next to the man, one hand jammed in his pocket, his arm straight down his side, the other hand up near his throat. 

“His last bodyguard only carried a taser.” Maddie observed. 

“Right.” Jack narrowed his eyes. 

Vlad and the stranger headed toward the ballroom door, the stranger shepherding Vlad out ahead of him, then out to the hotel lobby.

“Dibs!” Maddie hissed. Jack gasped, pouting as she patted his shoulder and got up carefully from the table. 

“I’ll be back in a minute,” She smiled at the other guests. 

Jack watched her go out after them, then listened to the end of the husband’s joke. 

They walked out the front of the Marriott, then into the parking lot. Vlad kept close to Coke Bottles until they were about to walk out of the hotel’s light across the lot. 

“There’s news cameras here,” He warned Coke Bottles. “If anything happens they’re right inside there.” 

He was sweating in his suit. 

Coke Bottles shrugged at Vlad, then took out his pack of cigarettes and waggled them at him. 

“Can’t smoke by the door. Federal Law.”

“Then don’t.” Vlad stopped dead, refusing to leave the arch of light coming out of the lobby. “What is it you guys want?”

Coke Bottles faced him, tapped his cigarettes against his palm. 

“Let’s see some ID.”

“You’re kidding me,” Vlad stared at him. He was all of maybe thirty years old, square and puggish under the suit. The agents were getting younger and younger, and turn over was pretty high. He’d hoped that nobody at the GiW remembered him but Vlad was used to being disappointed.    
“You brought me out here, you show me  _ your _ license.”

The coke bottles bobbed on his nose and the light from the hotel bounced off them. He snapped his fingers at Vlad. 

“You’re killing me here.”

Vlad grunted and took out his wallet, showing Coke Bottles his driver’s license. 

“So,” he handed back Vlad’s wallet. “When’s the last time you went by the home office?”

“Excuse me?”

“You've failed to check in with us, Mr. Masters. For a long time now.”

Vlad shrugged.

“I wasn't aware I had to.” He balled his fist in his pocket, then opened his hand slowly and balled it up again. “You never cared before.”

Coke Bottles nodded, tugging on his chin. 

“New policy, all active cases have to report in.”

“That's a huge waste of tax dollars.” Vlad told him. He shook his head back and forth, trying to clear it, then asked Coke Bottles. “Does Senator Mordake know about this?” 

The glasses bobbed up and down again as he smiled.

“She knows. And she knows it's none of her business.” The eyes behind the glasses looked giddy. “Y'know it's just strange, you move from Wisconsin to Amity Park, Amity Park’s already on our shortlist. Then you, a active scale-one para--”

Vlad cringed and cleared his throat loudly over Coke Bottles, his brows arching down along his nose. 

“Show up and get yourself elected mayor. And we never hear a peep from you.” Coke Bottles finished. 

Vlad nodded, rolling his eyes. 

“Yes, exactly. Why would you hear from me? I moved, what? Eight, nine, ten years ago? You’ve known I was here so why’re you bothering me now, for Chris’s sakes?”

“I assure you, Mr. Masters, this is just a routine check in. There’s no need to get angry.”

Vlad scoffed at that.

“You guys already sneak around keeping an eye on me, you demolished my last home, or did you forget that? What do you want this time?”

A twig snapped in the bushes next to them and both men looked over at the bare tangle of branches. Whatever made the sound had stopped moving. Coke Bottles took a penlight out of his breast pocket and clicked it on, shining it over the bush. Vlad watched the white light fall through the empty branches and heard small feet scrambling away from them. 

“Oh congratulations,” Vlad clapped his hands. “You scared a squirrel. Great work, agent.”

Coke Bottles turned the penlight on Vlad, shining it in his face before he snapped it off again.

“Certain information has come to light. It's about your prescription. We believe it's no longer effectively blocking your,” he groped for the right word, “condition.”

Vlad raised his eyebrows, pointing to his clear skin with both hands.

“I'd know if they weren't working,” he said, “trust me, they work.”

Coke Bottles shook his bald head.

“They may be treating your primary symptoms but not secondary side effects. We won't know until we have you in for a check up.”

Vlad rubbed his forehead, his foundation smearing under his fingers. 

“Just...” he let out a harsh sigh, looked down and spread his hand out at Coke Bottles. “What's changed with my pills?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

Vlad glared at him.

“I'm very busy as mayor,” he said slowly. “I don't have time to come in to see you.”

Coke Bottles looked at Vlad's fingers, then pointed at his forehead. 

“You're wearing makeup, Mr. Masters?”

Vlad closed his hand, tucked it against his collarbone, and nodded.

“Is there a problem with that?”

“If your pills work why do you need to wear makeup?”

“It's, that's a personal matter.” Vlad huffed. “Did you really come all the way here from Washington to give me a hard time about wearing makeup?”

“Expect a call from us,” Coke Bottles got back on track. “You'll be given the time and place for your appointment.”

Vlad scowled.

“I can't just drop everything to accommodate you people. Why do you care so much now? You haven't bothered me in eight years, you had such a great streak going.”

Coke Bottles smiled at him again, taking out his cigarettes and poking one in his mouth. He stepped back and ducked his head down to his lighter.

“Times change, Mr. Masters.” He snapped the  lighter closed and turned his head back up. “This is a public health concern, we're taking every necessary precaution.”

“Yes, poking at an old man’s face. You really are keeping the public so very safe.” Vlad pulled at the end of his ponytail. 

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Masters.” Coke Bottles turned away towards the parking lot, then paused and turned back. “Ah, one more thing,”

“What is it, Columbo?”

“Does the name ‘Plasmius’ mean anything to you?”

Vlad shook his head no.

“Plasmius? What is that, Latin?”

“Something like that,” Coke Bottles puffed on his cigarette, the orange tip lighting up his cheek. “I'm surprised you're not familiar. It's the name of a specter that was first seen in Wisconsin. Scale-ten, at least. And then more recently he popped up here in Amity Park. About six foot one, green skin, red eyes. Maybe a hundred seventy, hundred eighty pounds,” Coke Bottles cocked his head and looked Vlad up and down, playing cute. “Long hair.”

Vlad shook his head again, crossing his arms. 

“Never heard of him.”

“Some coincidence, huh?” Coke Bottles picked the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it on the ground and ground it out with the toe of his shoe. “Well anyway, enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Masters.”

He walked off across the parking lot and Vlad waved. 

“See you in hell.”

He went back across the lobby and down a hall to the bathroom, rifling in his pockets for his compact so he could touch up his forehead. Vlad kicked open all the bathroom stalls to make sure he was alone, then started babbling. 

“Playing coy with me like I'm some idiot,” he smeared fresh foundation with the old and tried to pat it smooth. He ended up with a blotch in the middle of his brow.

Vlad splashed water across his face and rubbed off his forehead with a paper towel. “‘What's the name Plasmius mean?’ Like I'm supposed to wet myself. Tipping your hand this early, of course there’s something else lined up, isn’t there?”

His reflection looked to him for the answer. Vlad leaned over the sink and started reapplying. 

“Old enough to be his father and he jerks me around. My file’s older than him. Who raised that  brat?”

He snapped his fingers at himself, scowling with his nostrils flared, then locked eyes with his reflection. They shared a grimace. 

“So they know and they… so they’re…”

He dropped his compact in the sink, splattering powder across the basin. Vlad’s hands had phased out. He phased them back and started scooping up what he could save of the compact. 

“I’m not going back,” Vlad spoke very fast. “I’m not, I’m not going back in there they can’t make me. I’m not going back in there.”

Holding the compact shut his hands shook. He took a few deep breaths and carefully put his compact away again. Then double checked his forehead, then washed his hands and adjusted his tie.

“‘Public health concern,’ yah, sure. Public humiliation, more like it. Well fine. Just one thing at a time, now.”

Vlad noticed his eyes were a little red, and his cheeks a little green.

“Couldn’t just sit at the table, huh?” He arched his eyebrows at himself as he finished adjusting his suit and pushed open the door out into the hall. 

“Had to go running away from Jack and--”

Maddie Fenton was waiting outside for him, picking twigs off the skirt of her dress.

“There you are,” She took his arm and yanked him down the hall, away from the wide open lobby. 

“Madeline,” Vlad stumbled along behind her, then stopped short when she did. His heart thumped inside his chest. “What's this about?”

“You tell me.” Little woman that she was she stood strong in front of him, arms crossed. “Who's the bald guy?”

Vlad stiffened and grimaced. His lip peeled back over his teeth and he stood tall, his shoulders going up to his ears. 

“None of your business. How--how dare you--”

Maddie scowled and crossed her arms. She turned her head and grumbled.

“What’d I expected?” 

“Does privacy mean nothing to you people?” He snapped. Maddie smiled back at him, her eyes narrow and bitter.

“Aw, V-man, you don’t like being watched all night? Too creepy for you, huh?”

Vlad blustered, his face darkening.

“You--how dare you speak to--I’m--”

“Hiding something,” She gave him a hard push, red in the face herself. “You must think you're so smart. Now what is it?”

“None,” Vlad stalked around her back down the hall. “Of your. Business.”

His shoes rang out against the title floor as he stormed across the lobby. Maddie's heels clacked closed behind him. When they came to the door to the SDU dinner she grabbed his arm again. He looked down at her.

“What’re you doing?” 

He jerked his arm away. Maddie looked at him levelly. 

“Do you want a cover for being gone the last half hour?” She cocked her head at him. “Or do you want to walk back in there alone?”

Vlad pouted, not in the mood for being condescended to any further. Still, it would be better than facing questions about where he’d been. He sighed and offered Maddie his arm. She took it and they walked back inside. Tonight was starting to feel very dreamlike, he may as well have been floating through the room to their table. Feeling Maddie next to him made it all the more surreal but that part he liked. The brush of her skirt against his suit was nice, he could almost feel her body under it. 

Maddie pinched the inside of his arm and didn’t stop, tightening her grip as they neared the table. Vlad leaned away from her as much as he could without being obvious, then hissed at her. 

“Not now,  _ please. _ I’ve had quite enough for tonight.”

“Enough of what, exactly?” Maddie glanced up at him. They came over to the table and she stopped pinching him, patting his shoulder hard and affectionately, saying cheerily; “You’ll have to tell me all about it later, Vlad.”

He cleared his throat and pulled out her chair. Maddie took her seat, smiling politely at the table. 

“Sorry to steal the mayor like that,” She said as he went around Jack to his empty seat. “We got caught up talking outside.”  

“‘Reminiscing,’ wouldn't you say, Madeline?” Vlad smiled at her and she nodded, smiling back.

“Remember that awful mullet of yours?” She laughed and it went around the table in jumps and starts. People snickered or smiled quietly or chewed their lips, not outright laughing at the mayor but wanting to.

“I remember your gigantic perm more,” Vlad replied. That got a few snorts from the table. Jack fiddled with something in his pocket.

“You're both forgetting,” he pulled out his wallet and from it took a worn out picture of the three of them. Vlad couldn't remember when it’d been taken. “The best hair I've ever had.”

“Oh boy,” Vlad leaned over Jack’s arm to see the picture. 

“See that,” Jack showed off the tired old Polaroid to him. It was a selfie by Jack, his young face beaming up at the camera, with Vlad and Maddie sitting and talking some feet behind him. Jack’s hair was down passed his shoulders, duck tailing up at the ends at an unusually greasy angle. “Jack Fenton, the Super Stud.”

Vlad laughed behind his hand, wanting to snap the picture up and have it blown way up and restored. Jack showed it to Maddie, who snorted loudly and then hissed a laugh out through her nose. She passed the picture around the table.

“I'm telling you,” Jack said, hanging his arm over the back of Vlad’s chair. “Mullets’ll come back.”

He combed his fingers lightly through his thinning hair. “And I'll be ready to party all the time.”

Vlad chuckled at that, looking at the picture again when it finished its circuit of the table. It was faded but holding it was nice, the edges were soft and pulpy, as if they'd been worried by fingers a lot over the years. 

He cleared his throat and handed the picture back to Jack. Vlad could feel Maddie watching him again and it made his stomach tighten up. His dinner was cold but he ate anyway, trying not to think about how many pairs of eyes were on him. Cold chicken fricassee helped more than he'd thought it would, but then he had an even better idea. 

“I'll have a gin and tonic with some lime,” he told one of the banquet’s waiters. “In fact, make it a double.”

Once the picture of the three of them was put away Vlad’s interest in the conversation dried up again. He offered a few words here and there but that petered out after his third gin and tonic. This kind of formal social drinking had become a regular part of his life, though he didn’t usually commit to it as fully as he did that night. What else was there for him to do? Sit there ogling Maddie in front of the rest of Amity Park’s politicians? Listen to Jack going on and on about the mysteries of the Ghost Zone? Watch the room to see if Coke Bottles was going to come after him with a butterfly net? 

What in Christ’s name was he going to do? Vlad closed one eye and squinted at the lime in the bottom of his glass. Why’d he move to Amity Park, anyway? He could’ve just let Daniel be, stayed in Wisconsin and built a new castle. His last home being demolished had him seeing red, making stupid decisions. If he’d known what was good for him he would’ve stayed hidden and safe, let the watchdogs think they’d scared him and slip back under their radar. But no, he moved to Ghost Town, USA to get closer to that little punk. And elected himself mayor. As if he wasn’t already walking around with a target on his back.

“Wes,” Vlad caught the apron of the banquet waiter who’d been buzzing back and forth between him and the bar. “Lemme get one more.” 

He handed over his glass and looked around the table at the best of Amity Park’s high society. A couple dentists, career bureaucrats, the head of Sanitation and the owner of the town’s largest junkyard. And now Maddie and Jack Fenton, the village idiots. 

Maddie was the only one to look back at him. She raised an eyebrow at him, watching his empty glass floating away in the hands of the waiter. Then back to Vlad. He scowled at her. Who the hell was she to judge? She’d married a clown and now they played spy in the affairs of their betters.

He leaned back in his chair and fished out his phone, almost dropping it as he opened Two Dots again. The puzzle was simple, he could tell, but he was drunk. He connected a few lines of red dots, then saw a way to clear all of them from the board. He played it, closing off a square that blew up every red dot on the board and shot into a pair of orange dots. Then the board had to reset because there would be no more matches for him anywhere. 

Vlad stuffed his phone back in his pocket, looked up in time for his fifth drink to come floating over. He took the glass, looked over at Maddie and toasted her silently, arching his eyebrows. She looked away.

He drank and missed Danny. He made much more sense with Danny around. Vlad Plasmius had grand, diabolical, dynastic goals. Ruling the Ghost Zone, the Ring of Rage on his finger and flames crowning his head. Where was his drive now, his ambition? His spirit?

Did he have anyone to be without Danny? What good was a mentor without a pupil? A villain without a hero? Being mayor, getting to direct the life of Amity Park, it meant nothing without him there. All this had just been a way for Vlad to get closer to the kid, to show off his powers and convince him that Danny needed a better father than Jack. That Maddie deserved a better husband. The Fentons weren't enough, Danny would be a hack if he didn't have Vlad to teach him to control his powers.

And now Danny was gone and Vlad was still here. And he’d dragged the Fentons closer to him, for what? A shot at Maddie? A chance to humiliate Jack? Look how that had worked out, Jack was a success and Maddie spied on him without caring if he knew or not. What had become of Vlad Plasmius?

He was nothing now, a bored old man playing mayor in Podunk, Nowhere. Not the King of Ghosts, not Forbe’s Man of the Year, not even the richest man in Wisconsin. Just Vlad Masters, hammered, at a dinner in honor of Jack Fenton. 

Plasmius was so much better. To give in like that, to chase after everything he wanted and make hell with whatever stood in his way. It all made such good sense. Simple strategy with high stakes, a good game for someone like him. The kind of game where stealth was required, and fortune favored the bold. He’d crisscrossed the board, playing this gambit and that to clear away all the other players. Push this pawn here to distract the King and stab him in the back when the pawn topples. Three space in an ‘L’ and you’d always get a nice shot at your opponent’s boardside.

What had changed him? Danny gone, no one to fight with. No one to play against, no one to beat. No rivalry to keep him going, keep his mind turning and driving towards his ‘destiny.’ Whatever the hell that was. Destiny should’ve hit him years ago, and instead he was the lonesome mayor of Amity Park. 

Danny gone and no one to talk to. 

What good was a ghost without a hunter?

Vlad looked from his fifth empty glass over at the Fentons. There was Jack, smiling tiredly, looking so much like his son.

“Jack,” Maddie hesitated, then looked up at her husband. He was bored to tears listening to the treasury secretary's husband tell another joke, and looked back at her wearily. “I think someone should take Vlad home.”

The dinner had wound down, theirs being the only table left with more than two or three people hanging around. Vlad hadn't said much in the last hour, just drinking and watching the others. Jack hadn't been keeping an eye on him but now he saw the empty glasses littered in front of him.

“Hey V-man,” Vlad jumped as Jack reached around to take his shoulder and almost yanked him out of his seat. “Let's get on the road, huh? I think it's time we called it a night.”

Vlad muttered, stuck in his seat. He pulled out his phone for more Dots and then dropped it. It clunked loudly on the floor. Vlad bent down after it and his stomach sloshed hard. He stayed down, trying not to barf, and felt his phone fall into his lap.

“Here,” Jack tossed it to him. “C’mon, V-man.”

He took Vlad’s elbow and carefully helped him up, wary about walking him out too fast. Maddie got up and got Vlad’s coat from the back of his chair. 

“Jack,” she said after they'd said their goodbyes and were headed out of the ballroom. “I didn't mean  _ we _ should take him.”

“Who else, Maddie? Who else’d take him home?”

“Yah Maddie,” Vlad snapped at her, drunk eyes drooping and rolling her way. “Who else?”

Maddie screwed up her face at him.

“See?” She said to Jack. “He's a mean drunk.”

“You don't know,” Vlad grabbed his coat from her, stuffing himself inside it and burping loudly. “You think this is mean, you don't know, you don't know anything.”

“He,” Jack took hold of Vlad’s arm, worried that he was about to run off. “He still needs to get home Maddie.”

Vlad slapped at Jack’s hand, then stopped suddenly and bent double, head tucked low between his shoulders. He groaned, rubbing his stomach, and pushed the heel of his hand up into his eye. This was great, Maddie Fenton was about to get an all access pass to watching him puke all over himself.

He burped again and the sick feeling passed. Jack chuckled uncomfortably and pulled Vlad along. 

“Let's go.”

Maddie was quiet as they drove out of the parking lot, back to the highway that roped around town towards Pulter Heights. Jack drummed his fingers on the wheel, humming quietly. Vlad lay across the back seat and groaned when the car rode over bumps. 

“What's his address?” Jack asked his wife as they rolled down the offramp into the long manicured boulevards.  

She hummed and shrugged. 

“Vlad what's your address?”

He gurgled it to them but neither could make out what he said. 

“Hang on.” Maddie unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned around her seat to the back of the car. She yanked Vlad’s wallet from his back pocket and took out his license. 

“It's still in Wisconsin. God.” She put the old license away and tossed the wallet back at Vlad. “You're a mess, Masters.”

Vlad grunted at her.

“I guess we better take him home, home.” Jack raised his eyebrows at his wife. She sat back in her seat and buckled up again, sighing.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Jack turned down the next block and they headed east back towards Fenton Works.

“So who was that guy?” Jack asked Maddie.

“I couldn't really tell,” she replied. “They talked about some medication for Vlad. I guess he must've been Vlad’s doctor but he talked like a cop. Paranoid too, I almost got caught because of a squirrel in the bush next to me. It...”

She paused, looking back at Vlad and finding him curled up on his side to facing the backseat. Jazz used to sleep like that on long car trips.

“It sounds like he's getting sick again.” She said quietly to her husband.

The car rolled to a stop at the light before the turn into their garage. Jack stared straight ahead, his forehead striping and his cheeks falling. Maddie reached over and held his arm, giving him a squeeze to distract herself from how hollow he looked.

“Jack, I'm sure they're taking care of him.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Why would they want to hurt him?”

They sat there waiting for the light together.

Jack pulled into the garage, parked the recreational vehicle, and sat there for a moment. He put his hand over Maddie’s where it touched his arm. 

“Your hair looks really great tonight,” he told her.

“Thanks,” Maddie brushed her fingers through it. “I kind of miss having it down. Are you okay, big guy?”

Jack shook his head, his chin poking out. 

“If the doctor has to show up like that, that must be pretty bad news. And we were just getting things back on track, you know? We were talking and we had lunch and I was getting closer... I was thinking the other day, y’know, how good he looks. Like, healthy, like he’s all better.”

“Jack,” Maddie touched his cheek. “We don't know what it is yet. Let's not jump to conclusions, okay? Observation always comes first.”

Jack drummed his fat fingers on the steering wheel. 

“I'm thinking we jump straight to experimentation,” he told her, half joking. “We got him into remission before, we can try it again. Or try for a cure.”

“We can try,” Maddie nodded, her earrings jiggling.  She paused, then added. “I know where to start.”    
She opened her door and stepped out and shut the door. Jack got out after her and they said something over the hood of the car that Vlad couldn’t make out. He lay there staring at the backseat, clutching his wallet and hearing them exchange back and forth before the back door opened right over his head. 

Vlad closed his eyes again and Jack touched his shoulder.

“C’mon, V-man. You're staying with us tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I work with a career waiter, tall red headed guy, and I figured, oh, it'll be cute to sneak him in a cameo. And me, I don't know a ton about the DP fandom, so I just toss my co-worker into this scene. Then I have my co-conspirator give me critique on this chapter and she's like 'omg you worked in Wes Weston!' and I'm like '... Wes who?'  
> That led to the whole explanation of who the hell Wes Weston is, and the combination shot of them having the same name and hair has me fucked up to this day.


	5. 05

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is not funny." is the theme of this chapter. 
> 
> It's really not a funny chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find a song that fit this chapter right, so sorry babies.

**05**

**1985**

* * *

 

Maddie rode along in the ambulance and Jack chased after it in his Dodge Rampage. He parked behind the ambulance and watched them wheel Vlad out on a gurney. It bounced over the curb and they rushed him into the ER. Jack thought he could hear Vlad groaning but he wasn't sure. 

He and Maddie hurried in behind Vlad, running after his gurney as it was rolled in through the double doors and down the hall. 

They flew passed the reception desk, tore down the hall and were stopped dead at a pair of double doors.

“No visitors through here,” a nurse told them. 

“No! No, that's our friend -- he needs us!” Maddie tried to push passed the nurses. Jack shoved himself between them and the door and she yanked on the handle. The doors clanked loudly but wouldn’t open. “You can't come through here!”

“Stop saying that!” Maddie turned on one of the nurses, face as red as her hair. Jack beat against the doors with his fists. 

“Vladdy!” Jack’s yelling drowned out the hammering of a security guard’s feet as she came down the hall for them. “Vladdy! Vladdy!”

It took two security guards, two nurses and a doctor to remove Jack and Maddie from the ER. One of the guards ushered them away, leaning against the front of the building as the two of them stalked out into the parking lot. 

“Can’t park your truck here,” The guard called to them, pointing to the Rampage parked in the ambulance lane. “Move it.”

Maddie climbed into the cab and grabbed in her purse. Jack sat in the driver’s side, turned the heavy, spitting engine over and clicked on the lights. They wove out into the lanes of cars. The plastic sleeve on her pack of Marlboro’s crunched loudly in her hand as Maddie plucked out a cigarette and lit it. She churned down her window as Jack parked close to the front.

He took one of the cigarettes and her lighter, puffing hard and feeling his eyes cross. Jack coughed, felt his ears pop. It didn’t leave him, rolling up his chest and making him cough until his eyes watered. Maddie thumped him on the back.

“You okay?”

Jack shook his head. He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and wheezed, then puffed on it again a few times, quick and light. Maddie's hand smoothed over his back, and he felt her shiver.

Jack looked down at his hands and found them shaking. He was shivering. His cheeks were wet. 

Maddie wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his side. 

“I got you, Jack.”

He hung an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her curly head. The cigarette wobbled dangerously close to her hair and he grabbed it and tossed it out the window.

“Deep breath,” she rubbed his stomach, shifting so she sat over the cupholder to be right along his side. Jack hiccuped in a breath and sputtered it out. He tried again, breathing in slower and a little smoother. After a couple attempts he got the hang of it.

“Holy shit,” Jack found his voice, mopped at his face with one hand and hunching over the steering wheel. “Maddie what’ve I done?”

Maddie gulped loudly, then choked down a breath passed the lump in her throat. She wrapped Jack up again and turned her face into his side. As he shook in her arms Maddie felt the cold and dark of the night close over them. She closed her eyes and cried.

When they finally sat up and looked at each other again they were both messes. Maddie had left a wet spot smeared all over Jack’s side, and Jack’s hair was matted to his wet cheeks.

She pulled napkins out of her purse and they tried to clean themselves up. 

“God,” she said harshly as Jack blew his nose. “What now?”

Jack shook his head.

“Gotta tell them what happened.”

Maddie whimpered.

“Would they believe you?”

“What?”

“What if they think you're lying?” She sat up. “You tell them about the portal, would they even believe you?”

Jack shrugged.

“Then they don’t believe me. But they have to know what happened, it might help something.”

Maddie chewed on her knuckle.

“I don't know,” she said between bites.

They walked back in together and met the security guard at the front door.

“I need to talk to my friend’s doctor,” Jack told him, pale now instead of bright, angry red. “Or just any doctors. Please.”

The security guard looked them over, then huffed and nodded to the doors.

“Go ahead.”

They walked back into the hard white light of the ER. One of the nurses they'd screamed at was messing with a stack of files behind the reception desk. She shot them a glare. Jack lumbered over to her.

“I need to go talk to the doctors about my friend’s accident.”

“Any information you have you can tell me right here.”

“Yeah,” Jack panted and nodded. “Okay yeah. He got hurt in a lab accident.” His throat tightened and he huffed heavily, trying to get the rest out. “He got hurt. Hit. He got hit with a bunch of raw ectoplasm.”

“Ecto-plasm?” The nurse screwed up her face. “Is this a joke to you, son? Your friend is in critical condition, do you really want to be making jokes right now?”

“No, ma’am,” Maddie put her hands out to the nurse, reaching across the counter that separated them. “He's telling the truth. It's real, it's ghost residue, you find it--it's, it's…” She huffed, chewing her lip.

“V-Vlad could explain it,” Jack tacked on miserably.

The nurse looked from one to the other of them, not liking this joke. Or the looks on their desperate faces. 

“This is not funny.” 

Maddie put her head down and groaned, Jack held her shoulders. 

“It's not a joke, I swear to god.” He said. “Please just tell somebody, he was hit with ectoplasm, it's. Not radioactive but it has weird side effects. It makes stuff glow, it spoils milk.”

“You can't take a clear picture of it,” Maddie added.

“None of what you're saying makes sense,” the nurse told them. “If you have something to tell me why don't you sit down and think about it first. Over there.”

She pointed at the gaggle of chairs in the far corner of the ER. Way out of the way.

Jack and Maddie had a seat and tried to figure out what to tell her.

“What's,” Jack heaved out a deep breath. “What's that thing Vlad says?”

Maddie’s hair fell in front of her face and she looked like Cousin It.

“‘Badass ghost goo.’” She said.

Jack sputtered, fumbling over a laugh that was confused and brief. She didn't join him.

“Jack there's no,” her voice was quiet, barely coming through her curly mask of hair. “No way to explain it. It's not even from Earth, plasma doesn't even exist here. And Vladdy’s--” she hiccuped and took his hand. “The only one who c-could explain it.”

Jack hooked an arm around her and hung on tight.

“Let's think,” he said evenly. “We know his work, we know him. How'd he explain it?”

Maddie tossed her head back and forth. She pushed her forehead into the palm of her hand and ground her teeth.

Jack sat back, wet his lips, glanced around at the people coming and going. Everyone had somewhere to be and something to do. Their little island of chairs was the only spot in the whole hospital that was totally useless.

“He can't explain it,” Maddie came in next to him. She sounded so far away, as if she were yelling to him as he hung underwater. “We only know how to make more of it, Vladdy doesn't know what it is.”

“Oh,” Jack said, surprised to feel his mouth open without water rushing down into his lungs. “So nobody knows.”

“No--” Maddie said sharply. Her little shoulders stuck up and she looked away from him. “Somebody knows. Somebody’s got to know.”

She swiped the side of her hand across her wet eyes so hard it hurt.

“Well where the fuck is somebody? How do we get them?”

“I don't know, Jack!” She snapped, stomping her feet. “I don't have all the answers -- stop asking me!”

Jack scowled and leaned away from her. 

“You wanna do this right now?”

“Do what?” She spat.

“Fight.”

“God--God dammit Jack!”

Maddie got up and threw her purse at him, then snatched it back and stormed off.

Jack sat there looking down at his hands for a long time. He didn't look up to see where Maddie went. He didn't look up to see the nurses bustling around. The linoleum floor under his seat was dull green with tiny gold and white seams. One corner was coming up and one was already broken. Polished, clean and sterile.

He closed his eyes and prayed for the sound of a buzzer, the pattering footsteps of the show’s host.

Smile! You're on Candid Camera!

When he opened his eyes again the linoleum square was still peeling, still broken. Jack stood up slowly and wandered over to the front doors. Outside in the parking lot he saw the vague shape of Maddie’s big curly hair. A trail of smoke rose from her mouth.

He turned back to the nurse at the reception desk. She threw him as look, talking on the phone to someone. As he came over she hung up the phone, sat forward and folded her hands in front of her on the desk.

“You should call the Department of Health,” Jack told her. “Or the Governor’s office. I don't know. He needs all the help he can get.”

He hung around as she made the calls. When she didn't know what to say she handed him the phone and Jack fumbled through the same explanation three or four times to three or four monotone voices after being handed here and there through switch rooms and gofers and secretaries. After almost an hour of that he finally got one piece of assurance.

“We'll look into it, son.”

The nurse hung up the phone, looked up at Jack and touched his arm.

“We'll take care of him. You should go home, son. Get some rest.”

He disagreed but he didn't say so. He wandered out into the parking lot. The Rampage was dark but when he opened the driver’s side door he found Maddie curled up in the passenger's side. She lifted her head when he jostled her shoulder and Jack couldn't tell if she'd been sleeping or just curled up in the dark.

“I deliver my thesis tomorrow morning.” She sniffled. “Eight A.M. sharp.”

Jack climbed into the driver’s side, slammed the door and squared his shoulders.

“Yeah, okay.” He muttered, cramming the key in the ignition and turning the heavy, spitting engine over. Maddie sat up, eying him as he pulled on his seatbelt. She followed suite.

“We're not staying?”

Jack checked his mirrors and shook his head.

“They're calling people. There's…” His neck bobbed as he swallowed hard. “We better just get some sleep.”

He pulled out and they wove through the parking lot. Maddie watched the lights of the hospital, twisting in her seat and peeking out to look out the back until the highway took them out and away from the tiny white lights hanging in the dark.

Jack dropped Maddie off and drove back to campus. He parked behind their dorm and went up to the room. It was an apartment style place with two bedrooms and a little kitchen. He went into Vlad’s room and looked over his bookshelf. Dracula, Frankenstein, Harlan Ellison, Moby Dick. Jack took out Vlad’s copy of The Portrait of Dorian Gray, tried turning a few pages in it, and had to put it back. He didn’t like dense text and he couldn’t keep his eyes dry. 

He gathered up books, a blanket, the magazine by Vlad’s bed. Before he left back to the hospital Jack grabbed something for Vlad from his own room. 

On his way back Jack rolled down his windows and drove fast through the blackness. The cab of the Rampage turned into an icebox. His face chafed with the wind, his skin burned with cold. Then it didn't. 

Parking with numb hands was a terrible idea. He parked far from the other cars in the lot, shaking as he came down from the sound of the tearing wind in his ears.

Windows up, he turned on the heat and huddled by the vent, feeling it sigh reluctant lukewarm puffs on his frozen face. Jack wrapped up in Vlad’s blanket, bundled up with a view of the hospital. 

Sometime in the early morning he fell asleep.

He woke stiff and cold. The parking lot was light, cars shuffled around into new spots. He turned on the Rampage and checked its clock. Seven thirty. 

The new security guard standing outside the ER didn't look twice at him. Inside Jack found new patients. New nurses. No one came running up to him. No one seemed to notice him standing there.

“I’m here to see Vlad Masters?”   
The new nurse at reception held up a finger, opened up the file cabinet behind her and started flipping through it. Jack stood there listening to the bustle of the hospital, the incomprehensible voice over the PA, the steps of doctors and nurses, a man wheezing down the hall. The walls were light green, almost the same color as his toothpaste and the building smelled strongly of ammonium cleaner. 

“Vladimir Masters,” The nurse turned back to him, eyes down on the file in her hands. “He was moved out of ICU this morning but he’s not allowed any visitors until we figure out what’s wrong with him.”

Jack’s lips drooped and he looked down at the stack of books he’d brought for his friend. 

“Could I go in just to drop off some stuff?” Jack held up the books. “I won’t bother him, just in and out.” 

The nurse looked from Jack to the books, then down at Vlad’s chart. He was brought in last night in critical condition and hadn’t responded to any treatment so far. All the regular diagnostic tests the doctors ran on him were coming back negative. The chances of him ever leaving the hospital were getting slimmer the longer they all stood around scratching their heads. 

And here this kid wanted to drop off some books for him. 

Friends and family never really accepted the news until it was too late, and then they all wished they’d gone in for one last visit. 

“Follow me,” she came around the reception desk and took the pile of books from Jack. They weaved through the busy halls, snaking through identical corridors then down a flight of stairs to a pair of double doors. She punched in the code to unlock the doors, took off her nametag and stuffed it in her scrubs, and they came into a quieter part of the hospital, still toothpaste green. Jack noticed no patients in the halls here, just quiet white doors all closed. The nurse was walking faster, her head tucked low between her shoulders, like she wished she could retreat into her shell. A sign on the wall pointed the way they were headed, towards the morgue. 

Jack kept close to her, feeling the pressure of being so close to so much death. Further down the hall there was another pair of double doors, painted black. They walked down towards them, stopping at the second to last white door in the hall. The nurse handed the books back to Jack and then opened the door to reveal a closet full of white hazmat suits. 

“Put this on,” She took the books back and handed him the largest suit on the rack. Jack stepped into it, fighting to get the legs to sit right before he pulled it up over his shoulders and zipped the front closed. He looked like a big rubber glove, felt like one too. The nurse took a wrinkly white hood with a plastic screen in the middle of it and snapped it onto the back of Jack’s suit, over his head. 

She handed Jack the books after wiping down their outsides with a baby wipe from the closet and spraying the pages with what looked to Jack like a can of deodorant. Then they went to the last white door in the hall, all of ten feet from the morgue, and she opened it for him. 

“Be quick, okay?”

Jack’s hood shuffled against his ears as he nodded. He stepped inside and the door closed behind him. 

It looked like any other hospital room, bright and sparse with the wheeled bed in the middle of the the little room. A chair, a bedside table. On one side of the bed a machine moving up and down, folding like an accordion and sighing.  A long hose of blue plastic feed out of it up onto the bed and stuck into Vlad’s nose. His finger was bandaged and hooked into another machine that stood silent, one red light on its face blinking. 

Two IV’s with fat red bags hanging from their arms were set up, one in Vlad’s arm and the other snaking its chord under the sheets by his ankle. A tall beige computer stood by the bed beeping quietly. A line mapped out Vlad’s heart rate on its round black screen. He was still ticking away in there.

Behind all the equipment Vlad lay on the bed, limp and white as a sheet. His head was shaved, the top prickled with white stubble. The bedsheets were perfectly smooth, the bed made and folded neat and flat over his narrow chest with his arms laid out artificially over them. His skin looked like tissue paper and his head was the only part of him that weighted anything at all, sunk into his pillow like a bowling ball. 

Jack set the books down on a table by the bed, suddenly scared of him. He’d visited his grandmother briefly on her last hospital visit, but they hadn’t really been close. It took a couple deep breaths that fogged up his face screen but he managed to step up to the bed. 

Vlad’s face was a mess, gaunt and pale with his mouth hanging open and his tongue drying out. His skin was covered in angry red sores, covering his cheeks and nose. Yellow pus had run down his face and dried in long tracks, white heads poked across his forehead and as he squinted through the haze inside his screen Jack saw red welts on his lips, inside his nose and ears, and even along his eyelids. One pimple was growing under his eyelid, propping that eye open just a bit. All over the acne was in different stages, subcutaneous welts, fat blackheads and whiteheads, open and oozing pus and blood. 

Jack felt sick to his stomach. 

He stepped away, then felt bad, and tried to look interested in Vlad’s chart. 

The handwriting was hard to make out but he read ‘2mg morphine/30 minutes, base 15 mg.’ The numbers didn’t mean much, but he knew what morphine was. He guessed it was making them both feel a little better. That made Jack smile a little despite himself, but it soured immediately. He huffed, balling up his fists and looking across at the wall before he turned back to Vlad and made himself watch him. 

“H-hey V-man,” Jack could barely hear himself inside the suit, and talking only made the screen fog up worse. He pawed at the outside, trying to smear the fog away before reaching around and undoing the clasp on the back. Poking his head to one side he got a hand into the hood and tried to wipe the condensation away. That only succeeded in getting his wrist stuck in between the collar and the hood, and Jack bumbled with it trying to get free until he pulled the whole thing loose, ripping one of the clasps off the collar and leaving him exposed in the room with the mystery patient. 

His heart was hammering and he turned to the door, ready to book. A sound stopped him. 

It was a long dry sigh that knocked around Vlad’s narrow chest and dragged itself up out of his throat. Jack turned back at the sound, seeing Vlad’s mouth close slowly before his dry white tongue poked out over his ruined lips to try and wet them. 

He looked at the bedside table, seeing a water bottle like the one from a hamster cage, with a long bent nozzle on the top. Jack held his breath and came over to the bed, picking up the bottle and touching Vlad’s chin with his free hand. 

“It’s okay,” He tilted Vlad’s head back just so and poured a little of the water into his mouth, waiting to see him swallow before pouring in a little more. “I’m here. I got you, Vladdy.”

He repeated the process a few times until Vlad sighed again, sounding a little more alive. Jack set the water bottle down and sat in the tough little hospital chair by the bed. He spoke quietly to his friend. 

“I got you some of your books. I didn’t know which ones you were, y’know, reading but uh, I just got the ones I remember you said you liked. And, uh, there’s some other stuff there. That issue of Guys in White, the one I told you about with the Ecto-Spiders? Issue #248? I, I got you that one too.”

Jack watched Vlad’s face for a reaction, a blink or a sigh to let him know that his friend heard him. Nothing came so he sat back and looked over the books. Vlad’s psych textbook, new copies of Dracula and Moby Dick, the old Sports Illustrated that Vlad kept by his bed. The comic sat on top of the pile so he picked it up and started flipping through it.

“There’s this guy in here,” He said to Vlad, rifling through the pages. “That reminds me a lot of you. He’s kind of like a Batman rip off, y’know? Rich guy who fights crime and solves mysteries. I don’t know,” Jack put the comic down, not finding the man he was looking for.    
He picked his head up and saw Vlad looking back at him, peering at Jack with wet, red eyes. 

“Jack,” Vlad said softly, barely above a rasp. “You came.”

Vlad smiled and it hurt to look at him. Jack reached over and took Vlad’s hand, nodding his head. 

“That’s right,” Jack heard himself smiling and didn’t know how he was doing it. “Jack Fenton never left a man behind.”

Vlad’s lip pulled back over his teeth and his heavy head shivered. If he could’ve made a sound Jack guessed he’d be laughing. His hand was dry and thin and cold in Jack’s. Vlad might never get out of that hospital bed.

“We got in a fight with your nurses,” Jack kept going. “Think that’s why they shaved your head. Sorry, V-Man, that’s on us.”

Vlad grimaced and shook again, laughing with no sound. 

“Buy me a wig,” he rasped. He kept laughing even though Jack didn’t. Vlad sighed and peered back at his friend, breathing deep. Laughing left him tired. “My head’s not shaved,” he squinted at Jack. “Is it?”

Jack’s fat cheeks looked hollow and sunken in. His little blue eyes were dark under his worried brows. 

He looked down at the comic, saw something in the pressed pages and opened the comic up to the spread of the Night Bat he’d been looking for. A hoarse laugh came out of him for a beat and he turned the book up for Vlad to see. “That’s him, in his dumb turtlenecked tunic and cape.”

Jack put the comic up so Vlad couldn’t see his face. Vlad looked over, only moving his eyes as he lay made into the hospital bed. 

Blinking hard, Jack huffed and put himself together. He put the comic back down and Vlad was waiting behind it for him. 

“Where’s Maddie?” His eyes kept falling closed and peeling open again. Vlad’s body was so still on the bed Jack thought he might be talking in his sleep. 

“She’s delivering her thesis. She’d be here if she could. We’re coming together tomorrow.” Jack felt like he’d drawn the worse hand in the game today, and looking at Vlad he felt even worse for thinking it. “Sorry Vlad.” Jack’s voice caught and he couldn’t breathe. He opened his mouth, trying to get air in and sighed out. “Vlad I’m so sorry. Vlad I, Vlad?”

Vlad was perfectly still on the bed, his eyes closed except for the wet seam of the one that couldn’t close completely. Jack looked at his chest, looking for breath and holding his own.

He breathed. They breathed together.

Vlad stirred and opened his eyes again, brows knotting over them. He squinted at Jack and tried to focus. 

“Maddie and Jack,” He said loosely. “Jack and Maddie.”

He grimaced without laughing again and Jack nodded lamely. 

“Yup. We’ll be here for you tomorrow. I promise, V-man.”

Vlad closed his eyes slowly and his mouth curled a little at the corners. He lay there for a moment and then sighed. 

“Jack,”

Vlad figured he better say what needed to be said while he still could. He looked up at Jack’s little blue eyes and tried to put it all together. How could he tell Jack, admit the betrayal of their friendship, his feelings for Maddie, for them both. His best friend deserved to know. 

There was no way he’d get this right. 

Vlad shrank into the bed even more, put his head back. His eyes closed and the darkness behind them was soft and warm. 

Something heavy pressed on his mouth. Vlad felt a breath on his lips and opened his eyes. Jack’s cheek brushed his and the little blue eye in front of his was wet. Jack leaned back from the kiss, gripping the side of the bed. He let go of Vlad’s hand. 

Vlad watched him and the computer next to him picked up the tempo. Jack looked away. 

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Vlad huffed, staring up at the ceiling. 

Jack got up, shivering. 

“Vladdy I, I should go.” Vlad couldn’t see Jack but he thought of a good way out so he gave it to him. 

“Was that from Maddie?”

“No, Vladdy.” Jack sounded mad. 

Vlad closed his eyes and scowled. 

“Sorry, Jesus.”

Jack sat back down, making the hospital chair complain loudly. 

“Don’t be. You’re alright, Vladdy.” He touched Vlad’s chest. “This is all me.”

Vlad hummed, eyes still closed. 

“I’m tired, Jack.”   
Jack tried to figure out what to say. 

“I can’t stay. I’m not even supposed to be in here.”

Vlad didn’t say anything, breathing low. His eyes had fallen closed. 

“Okay,” Jack patted Vlad’s chest, stepping back from the bed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, V-man.”

He walked out of the room, holding his torn hood, but didn’t see the nurse who’d helped him anywhere. Jack pulled off the hazmat suit, stuffed it into a hazardous waste bin and went to wash his face. 

All that time, all those late nights together, the three of them, working and calculating, talking and laughing. Trying to play hacky sack with empty beers cans, turning used paper towel rolls into swords and fighting like children. His two best friends, the two people he loved in the whole world. He and Maddie talked about it a lot. He’d had plenty of good friends before, but it felt special when they three got together. Jack was a friend to everyone, Maddie told him, and Vlad was the opposite. A reclusive oddball, someone she’d never thought she’d like much. But put them all together in a room and they just clicked. 

“It’s you, y’know?” She'd told him once. “You really bring out the best in him.”

He’d waited too long to do something about it. He’d been too scared for Vlad, of what this would do to him in his confusion. Jack Fenton, a coward.

Jack went back to her apartment and stayed up with Maddie that night, talking over all of it. The next morning they came back to the hospital together, Maddie bringing a picture of the three of them for Vlad. 

“We’re here to see Vlad Masters?”   
A different nurse was behind the receptionist’s desk. She went into the filing cabinet and pulled out a chart, then turned back to them and shook her head, 

“He’s been moved to a different facility.”   
“What?” Color rose in Jack’s face. “No, no, he was here yesterday. I saw him just yesterday.”

“Well he was moved this morning. What do you mean you saw him? He was quarantined the whole time he was here.”

“A nurse let me see him, I think her nametag said Roberts? She let me see him.”

The nurse harrumphed at that, shaking her head again. 

“Nurse Roberts was let go yesterday, son. She no longer works here.”

Jack started to feel sick again and he didn’t know what else to say.

“Where was he moved to?” Maddie asked, hanging onto the picture frame. “We’ll go find him, Jack, don’t worry.”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that information.” The nurse replied. “He’s being treated in a different facility, that’s all I can say.”

“C’mon,” Maddie leaned her elbows on the desk. “This isn’t Russia, just tell us. We only want to give him this.” She set the picture down on the desk in front of her. The nurse looked at it and shook her head again. 

“I can’t give out no information, I’m sorry.” 

Maddie scowled and grabbed the chart from her, slapping it down on the desk to try and get a look at it.

“Hey!”

“Maddie!”

“Security!”

“Whoa whoa, hang on,” Jack grabbed the chart up and handed it back to the nurse, pushing Maddie back from the desk. “Okay, we don’t want to make trouble, here. We’re sorry, right Maddie.”

Maddie rolled her eyes, grabbing her picture frame and crossing her arms. A security officer, bald and dressed all in white, came running around the corner, reaching for his hip. Jack put up his hands and stepped back from the desk. 

“Sorry, sorry. We were just leaving. Sorry, have a great day.”

Maddie watched their backs as they scuttled back across the parking lot. A couple white sedans were parked close to the front. Bald heads were shadows behind the tinted windows.

In the Rampage Maddie kept kicking the underside of the dashboard and it was giving Jack a headache. 

“Would you stop?”   
“Jack that file was blanked out. The whole thing--it had Vlad’s admission date and then nothing, everything was whited out.”

Jack shook his head, feeling a knot forming at the back of his neck. 

“You shouldn’t have grabbed it, Maddie, and you shouldn’t be paranoid. I’m sure it was all there, you’re just seeing what you want to.”

“You think I’m making this up, Jack? Vlad’s our friend, he needs our help! They’ve taken him somewhere and--”

“And they’re treating him! Maddie! They’re going to make him better. Okay?”

“The hell they are! Why would they take him if they could?” Maddie snapped.

Jack’s face darkened and he locked his jaws. Maddie turned and looked out the passenger side window, kicking the dashboard as she thought. They didn’t speak until they were parked at her apartment again. 

“Can I come up? We can talk.”

Maddie led them up, going into the kitchen. She flicked on the light, brightening the little yellow room. Jack stood on the other side of the door, watching her pour herself a glass of water.  

“Look, when I saw him yesterday he was bad.” He started. Maddie leaned on the counter by the sink, her back to him. “Maybe this is a good thing. The hospital didn’t know what to do with him, so if they’re taking him someplace to get help then I think that’s a good thing. Why would they want to hurt him?”

Maddie huffed, her shoulders shivering as they fell stiffly. 

“I don’t know. Why would they need to take him?”

“I don’t know.”

Maddie shook her head, turning back to him and coming over. She leaned against the doorway and looked up at him. Her face was dark in the yellow light, his was lit up and hollow. 

“What’re we gonna do?”

Jack shrugged. She stepped forward and put her hand on his arm, her head on his chest. 

They stood together in the dark. 


	6. 06

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a fun chapter about Vlad having a terrible horrible idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the theme song for my favorite minor character, Vlad's PR rep.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs

**06**

* * *

 

Vlad woke up in the white room, seeing Jack scuttling away from his hospital bed before he even opened his eyes. 

The room before him was empty and so pale and perfect white that he couldn't tell the walls from the floor. Hard light filled the room from droning lights overhead, making it hurt to look around. This room always hurt him. 

His head throbbed as he sat up, looking at the familiar, featureless place. The vent in the corner of the floor, the steel sink and toilet, the one white door set into the white wall. Seeing it again after so long, Vlad thought how much he'd like to ram his head against the door and open one of them up.

Above the door was his old friend, the small black eye that watched him every day and every night. He stared back, picturing himself there, desolate, staring and waiting.

He got up slowly, stiffly, standing over his hard pallet of the a bed with its starchy little airline pillow. Watching the door he put his head down and squared his shoulders and ran as hard and fast as he could, ready to feel his head split and his neck twist as it connected with the cold, white metal.

Vlad bolted up in bed, panting and hearing the last of a strangled scream leave his throat. He blinked in the darkness, gasping for breath and sweating, gripping the sides of the mattress under him.

**Present**

* * *

 

Vlad groaned, his stomach churning, and he scrambled up out of bed. The afghan that had been thrown over him twisted between his legs and he stumbled for the door. 

It led into an unfamiliar hallway and Vlad let out a wet, sick sigh, remembering the drive back from the Marriott. He was at Fenton Works for the night. Rubbing his face roughly he wandered into the hall, looking for the bathroom and finding it two doors down. 

The house was quiet and still, down the hall in the master bedroom Maddie was asleep, out like a light once her panty hose and slipcover came off. She had spread out like a starfish in the middle of the bed and lain there snoring quietly while Jack sat up working by the window. As soon as Vlad was settled in the spare room and Maddie in their bed Jack went down to the basement and dug up some old files.

He'd tried laying there next to his wife and waited for sleep to cover him but tonight it wouldn't come. So he’d got out of bed, clicked on a light and started going over the case report on Vlad’s flare up from years ago.

‘Curing’ Vlad’s acne yielded odd results. 

The treatment centered around removing the sugar molecules that helped in the development of the acne, made it grow and mutate so severely. Once the sugars were cleared out the reactions in Vlad’s skin slowed enough that his body could process the acne properly. But clearly that hadn't been enough, they had won the battle and not the war. 

Jack got up around midnight and stretched, rolling his thick neck and hearing his bones popping. He walked out into the hall and down towards Jazz’s room, running his hand along the wall. 

So the growth of the blemishes had been diminished but Vlad was getting sick again. Which could mean a resurgence of the acne or a much more serious infection. Spectral energy could be eating away at his skull. His eyes could've been exposed to paranormal toxins. Jack stopped outside Jazz’s door, now the door to their guest room, and listened in the dark. He couldn't hear Vlad inside so he opened the door quietly and peeked in.

Vlad was curled up under the afghan, lying on his side just the way Jack had left him not more than an hour before. His shoes and coat were off, his coat hung over the corner of a box of old comics Jack used to read to the kids. The afghan Jack learned to crochet on was thrown over Vlad. Tucking Vlad Masters into bed seemed a bit much after the night they'd all had. 

The buzz from his speech had worn right off with the news of what Maddie overheard.

Jack closed the door and went back into the master bedroom. He gathered up his old notes, turned out the light and went into the hallway and pulled down the stairs to the attic. The lights of the Ops Center came on after he spent some time fumbling in the dark for the switch. 

The lab brightened, clean and bright. Black plastic dust covers were hung over the computer screens, the research tables were packed up neatly and in the crisp light time didn't seem to tick by at all. 

Jack pulled a chair out from one of the work stations and sat down with his notes and went over the formula for breaking down the sugar molecules. Years of checking and rechecking his math had helped it all make more sense to him, but he still wanted Maddie to take a look and make sure it was airtight.

He needed something that could break down the paranormal elements in Vlad's skin, something that would reverse the process, turn back the clock on Jack’s mistake. A second opinion would be good, or a third. If Jack could find out what Vlad was already being prescribed, what had already been tested and ruled out, he knew he could make his friend better.

It would take some doing but maybe he could get in touch with Washington, find out the name of Vlad’s bald doctor and see what they could do together. 

He got up and turned out the lights and sat in the lab, looking out at the dark night sky over their street. High up above it he felt like he sat in the crow’s nest atop a tall ship's mass. Jack wished he could open one of the windows and feel a breeze. Sailing uncharted waters was no good, especially if you couldn't even tell which way the wind blew. 

A short, sharp noise like a shout came from downstairs and Jack jumped up. His feet drumming back down the attic stairs. He came into the hall and found Vlad’s door open, no one inside the room. That froze him, panic making his heart thump against his sternum. A harsh wet sound came from down the hall and Jack turned to see the bathroom door open.

He poked his head in and found Vlad hanging onto the toilet, long spindly legs tangled around the base of it and his hair falling regrettably in his face.

“Aw geez,” Jack came over and reached down carefully, pulling Vlad’s hair back before the second wave of sickness shook through and out of him.

Vlad gurgled over the toilet and spit into it, not showing any sign that he noticed Jack there. Jack spotted a hair tie around Vlad’s wrist and plucked it off. While his hair was being messed with Vlad sat still, wheezing and spitting a little more. When he spoke he started as if he and Jack had been gabbing all night.

“So Jack,” his voice echoed off the toilet before he lifted his head to leer at Jack behind him. “When’re the kids home?”

“November,” Jack said, not half as easy and conversational as Vlad. His big fingers tied the hair tie delicately and let the braid he'd made of Vlad’s hair fall against his shoulder. “They, they don't come home for the summer now that they've both got apartments and all.”

Vlad nodded, humming politely before retching again. When he was done for the moment he cleared his throat and flushed the toilet.

“What's Danny studying?” Vlad leaned his chin on his hand.

“Astronomy, but he's done, actually,” Jack smiled uncomfortably at him. “Graduated a couple years ago now.”

“Oh,” Vlad knit his brows, mopping at his forehead with his hand. He turned away from Jack, feeling his stomach seize up again even though it was very empty now.

He hunched over the bowl and gagged, then sat back and sighed.

“Don't let me keep you up.”

“No, it’s, uh…” Jack got up. “Lemme get you some water.”

Vlad grunted and bent over the toilet again.

Jack went downstairs, poured the biggest glass of water he could find and brought it back upstairs. When he got back Vlad was sitting with his back against the side of the tub, his phone in his lap open to Two Dots. He'd taken a break to dab at his forehead with some toilet paper.

“Here,” Jack handed down the water to him, then sat next to Vlad on the edge of the tub. 

Vlad took a sip, swished it in his mouth and then spit it into the toilet. He sat up slowly and then drank down half of his glass of water, pausing dangerously in the middle. His back was straight, his body tight like he was ready to spring into action. This time he kept it down, and then finished the rest of the water.

“Time flies,” he murmured, setting the cup aside. He looked up at Jack, squinting. “When'd he graduate?”

“Would’ve been 2013, I guess?”

Vlad had no idea. Once Danny left for college the boy was off his radar. Making a point of not caring how long he was gone had been a mistake. Danny wasn't coming back to Amity Park.

“Happened so fast, V-man,” Jack’s voice was calm and low, he picked up Vlad’s glass and filled it from the sink and handed it back down to him. “One minute I'm dropping him off at orientation, the next he's walking across the stage at graduation.”

Jack sat down on the edge of the tub again, his hands on his knees.

“I tell ya, nothing makes you feel older than having kids.”

Vlad drank for a while then sighed and set the cup down. 

“Must be nice.”

Jack watched his old friend and nodded.

“It is. Raising kids is about the best thing I've ever done.”

“And fighting ghosts?” Vlad turned his red eyes up at Jack, his pupils wide and black in the dark. “How’s that feel?”

“How's it feel?” Jack tilted his head. “Good, of course. Helping people, keeping ‘em safe, blasting a hole through the phantom menace? It's good. Keeps me and Maddie busy, and I get to see you again.”

Jack shifted, looking down at Vlad, who’s dropped his eyes and sat looking at the toilet. 

“It's good to reconnect.”

Vlad sat up and expressed his opinion in messy chokes, heaving up some of the water and wiping his mouth carefully when it died down again. 

“Yes Jack,” Vlad closed his eyes and leaned his head on the cool tile on the side of the tub. “It's been a treat.”

“Moral support’s not helping, huh?” Jack got up, refilling Vlad’s glass again while Vlad flushed the toilet. “Well, what can I do for you?”

Vlad opened his eyes and stared up at Jack Fenton, the man who'd ruined his life. Plasmius couldn't show his face right now but that was fine. This was between Jack Fenton and Vlad Masters.

“I need you ready, Jack. You're my number one these days, I want you ready for anything.” Vlad sat up, hanging onto the side of the tub. “Things could get messy, ghosts are unpredictable you know, and you're the front line. I want you at your very best. Don't hold back, Jack. Not even for a second.”

Jack looked at Vlad, smiling bemused, and opening the cabinet over the sink. He took out a box alka seltzer tablets and dropped one of the little white pellets in Vlad’s water. 

“I meant tonight, buddy.” Jack smiled down at him. “But I get what you mean. You take care of what you got on your plate, I'll take care of the rest.”

Vlad nodded, watched his water fizzing and then took a sip. He wiped more sweat from his forehead.

“Go back to bed, Jack. I'm fine here.”

“You sure?”

Vlad nodded again. 

“Yah.”

“Alright, just holler if you need anything. I'm gonna be up tonight anyway.”

“Good night, Jack.”

Jack turned back to look at Vlad over his shoulder, snapping his fingers and pointed them at him like fat pistols.

“G’night V-man.”

Vlad snapped the fingers of both hands and shoot back at Jack. The big man closed the door behind him so Vlad would have some privacy.

The next morning Jack made them all breakfast, and fell asleep at the table. Without him to insist that Vlad stay it only took a few short words to Maddie before he was out on the street. 

Vlad took a taxi back to the Marriott, got in his BMW and drove home to a shower and some coffee.

He kept his eyes open and his ear to the ground, waiting for his moment to take Jack on. With unfriendly eyes open and alert now he couldn't just whip up the denizens of the Ghost Zone and have them come winging out of his mansion. Or Fenton Works, for that matter. He knew for a fact the federal government wouldn't like civilians having a portal to another dimension in their basement. If the Fenton house became a target then Maddie and Jack would both go down for it.

He'd need something more unusual, a big catastrophe for Jack to get caught in the middle of. Unleashing some great and terrible evil from the Afterlife would do the trick, but without Danny or Plasmius there was no one but Maddie who could save the town. And Vlad couldn't endanger his queen this early in his game.

Weeks passed and Jack hovered around him, offering more lunches and being turned down, popping up outside his office with this paper or that article or did you hear it was Intern Sandra’s birthday? 

Vlad didn't even know who Regular Sandra was, nevermind whatever college student was working under her. 

He signed the card anyway and handed it back to Jack.

“There's something else I want to run by you,” Jack told him, following Vlad down the stairs. “We need to talk long game for the SDU here, V-man. Releasing the specters we catch into the Ghost Zone is too darn risky, and it's a pain in the butt. Just last week Maddie had to save a couple of my agents when they got caught in an ecto-spiderweb. Made the poor guys look like a couple of,” Jack leaned down closer and said softly, “dickheads.”

Vlad hummed, pausing outside City Hall’s chamber of commerce.

“So should I make an appointment with you or something?” Jack asked.

Vlad tapped his bearded chin, then pointed at Jack.

“Y'know what? Take a couple days and come up with a presentation for City Council. I'll set a meeting for next week.”

“Really? That's great, V-man, but don't  _ you  _ want to hear what I'm thinking? We could, y'know, bounce some ideas around. Maybe we could grab a beer?”

Vlad shook his head, smiling thinly.

“I've got every confidence in you, Jack. Make me proud, here.”

A week later Jack was in front of the whole City Council, ping ponging between the tired wooden podium in the middle of the City Council Chamber, and the projector screen he and one of the AV nerds had set up. 

He was proposing a Ghost Compressor, essentially a dumpster that could hold and compress spectral energy and make it safer to release back into the Ghost Zone. Jack didn’t make it abundantly clear whether he planned on opening the unit once it was inside the Zone or just jettisoning it through the portal and building a new one. But that endgame wasn’t much of an issue for the City Council of Amity Park. They approved Jack’s plan after some rumbling amongst themselves. 

As the meeting ended Vlad got up from his seat by the city manager and took a look at the slide Jack had left up on the projector. It showed a blueprint for the Compressor, most of its component parts measured and mapped out. Vlad was surprised to find he could still read Jack’s shorthand. 

“What do you think, Mr. Masters?” The mayor’s intern-assistant asked. 

“It looks sound,” Vlad said to himself, glancing around and finding Jack talking with some of the city councillors. 

“Heather, get a copy of these blueprints sent to my office. And tell Jack I want full diagnostics of this thing once he's got them ready.”

The intern wrote that down, then said quietly:

“Um, Mr. Masters, I'm Sandra. Heather graduated last year.” 

“Oh, yes,” Vlad flashed a smile at her, gave her a pat on the shoulder and turned out of the room. “Of course you are.”

As he walked back into his office to kill time his secretary stopped him at the door. 

“Mr. Masters, you’ve got another call from Washington.” Vlad dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. 

“Tell them I’m out of the office.” He wandered into his office before she could finish her reply. 

It took another month before the blueprints were finalized enough for them to be at all useful but once they were Vlad got good and familiar with them. He had them pulled up on his iPad, looking over the Compressor’s power supply and filtration system. 

Unsurprisingly, Jack had Ecto-filtrators built into the thing, two on either side of the big dumpster shaped body and one on its back. The amount of spectral energy the Compressor was designed to hold was unmatched. Even a portal into the Ghost Zone couldn't compare to the energy inside the Compressor, making filtration vitally important. Vlad liked that quite a bit.

“Hey, trust fund,” his PR rep knocked on his desk. “You still with me?”

Vlad lifted his head and looked at her, a medium height woman with brown hair, glasses, wearing  tight pants and shiny black shoes. 

“Yes, yes, you want some new photo opps, I heard you.”

“Okay,” she replied, putting her phone in front of her face again. In all the meetings they'd had over the years Vlad could count on one hand the number of times she's said more than four words to him without staring at her phone. “And where's the next one gonna be?”

“How should I know, isn't that your job?”

She shook her head.

“I've got you with the fire department’s new engine next Saturday, that'll be good for the locals. If you'd been listening you would've known that.”

“Sounds boring,” Vlad looked back at his iPad and the Ghost Compressor. “Move that back a week.”

“It doesn't get moved back,” PR typed something rapidly into her phone with both hands. “That engine’s coming in on Saturday, the weather’s gonna be perfect, you're getting your picture taken. Heard anything new from your mom?”

“Sounds boring,” Vlad repeated, zooming in on the hookups for the Ecto-filtrators. He shook his head at her question. “No, nothing new.”

“Yeah nobody’s heard anything for a while. You should go out to Milwaukee and see her, we'll get some material for the Masters Foundation website.”

Vlad dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. 

“Too busy here, just put up a puff-piece on her. People love that.”

“Mrs. Masters is not puff-piece material.” PR looked up at him, then back down. It was an odd gesture that Vlad had gotten used to, her head bobbling in a courtesy glance to seem polite. 

“I didn't say she was,” Vlad shot her a look. “She's not a frivolous woman.”

“Sure, no, she's not.” PR’s eyebrows bounced up her big forehead. “Puff-pieces are for little old ladies who bake pies and knit sweaters for stray kittens. Mrs. Masters spends her time breeding the world’s most vicious guard dogs.”

“You're blowing that way out of proportion.”

“She still says FDR was a commie.”

“Well he was. Look,” Vlad closed the leather case over his iPad. “If you want something for the website so bad just go there yourself and get one of the cousins to do it.”

“You don't have any cousins for her to see.”

He screwed up his face at that. 

“What are you talking about? Max Horne, he lives right out there in Fond du Lac. You could have the whole thing done in a few hours.”

“Maxwell Horne moved to New York and now she goes by ‘Jamie Greene.’” PR reminded him. “Mrs. Masters won’t have anything to do with her.”

“Oh… Geez…” Vlad drummed his fingers on his desk. He was way overdue for sending Jamie Greene a Christmas card.

“Yeah, so you're gonna go out there. Let's call it next month, take a weekend and see her.”

Vlad shrugged his shoulders at that.

“Fine. Where else am I going?”

“Your opponent from the last election is gonna be in court next week.”

“What? What happened to them?”

PR shrugged, smiling quietly to herself.

“They got picked up with a dime bag, possession. It'd be nice of you to pardon them, as long as they get clean.”

“You're setting me up for an anti-drug campaign?”

She nodded.

“Everybody’s against drugs.” She snorted, courtesy glancing up from her phone again. “Well, almost everybody.”

Vlad rolled his eyes and flipped his iPad back open. 

“Is that it?”

“Yeah. What's that you keep looking at?” PR said to her phone.

“It's uh,” Vlad unzoomed the picture, turning the iPad around where she could see it. She didn't look away from her phone but her eyebrows moved up her head again. “Jack Fenton’s idea for a Ghost Compressor. He wants it for the SDU.”

PR pouted, thinking, then looked away from her phone down at the iPad.

“It looks like a big dumpster with a ham radio antenna.”

“It's what's inside that counts,” Vlad leaned his cheek on his fist, swishing the iPad back over to him.

“Well even if it’s ugly the SDU’s always great press. Let's set up a thing for it, big unveiling type deal.”

Vlad rolled that around in his head and then nodded.

“Yah, sounds real good. Let's make it a public demonstration. Make that next month, before my visit with Mother.”

PR tilted her head.

“Doesn't he still need to build it? How long’s that gonna take?”

“You don't know Jack,” Vlad told her. “He could probably turn a washing machine into one of these things if you gave him an afternoon. He'll have it ready in a month.”

PR typed into her phone and then stood.

“Okay, that's that, then. Anything else I should know?”

Vlad shook his head, mouth drooping.

“You're sure a puff-piece won't work? You could just go out and interview Mother.”

“Are you kidding? She'd release the hounds on me immediately.”

Vlad scoffed.

“I can't believe you’d think that about a woman you barely know.”

“Yeah,” PR looked at him straight. “Wonder where I'd get an idea like that. G’night, Mr. Masters.”

Vlad flipped through the different pages of blueprints Heather had sent him. There were breakdowns of the negative ion fields that compressed the ghost energy, the internal structure that maintained the ionic fields. Diagrams of the lead meshes inside the filtrators. 

The last page had a few paragraphs on it in Jack’s big square handwriting, detailing the system’s fail-safe.

Vlad read it a few times to make sure he got it all. The premise was simple enough: to keep the filtrators from becoming dangerously overloaded and blowing the whole system to smithereens Jack had built in a safety catch. If two of the three filtrators became overloaded and unresponsive the Compressor would shut down, neutralizing the ionic fields inside and turning the Compressor into a big ghostly lock-box. 

There was a note at the very bottom of the page.

‘Shut down while system is over 85% capacity could result in some ghost energy leakage. Lesser of two evils re: filtrator explosion.’

Vlad packed up his things and went home, ignoring cat Maddie and Holo-Maddie and going straight down to his lab.

He'd made some modifications to his Ecto-filtrators over the years, making them longer lasting after very limited success in trying to make them less explosive. What he’d settled on looked quite similar to what he saw in the blueprints, bigger tubes with more layers of lead mesh inside to filter out more positive ions and paranormal energy. If dreamcatchers actually worked they’d look a lot more like filtrators. 

That was the odd thing about his work. Fighting the paranormal was just as much mysticism as it was hard science, particularly when it came to ghosts. Banging pots and pans together and reciting rhymey little spells could be just as effective in clearing ghosts from a house as the Fentons’ anti-ghost arsenal. Still, the occult of the Olde Worlde didn’t mesh too well with Jack’s various _ Die Hard _ fantasies.

Vlad shut down his Ghost Portal and removed its filtrator, opening the top and looking inside. He’d have to make a new one, slightly different dimensions, different arrangement of the lead inside. 

The calculations were the longest, driest part of the process. It was a week before Vlad was able to estimate with any confidence just how much energy the Ghost Compressor and the filtrators used. But, once the math was over, he had his answer and the rest was simple. He built two dummy filtrators, identical to Jack’s designs but with a hair trigger for overloading. Vlad estimated they’d last about five minutes after being hooked into the Compressor, before they locked up and shut the whole thing down.

Weeks later, when Vlad was putting the final touches on his fake filtrators, Jack was loading in batch after batch of ghosts in the Compressor. The fact that it was already done before his filtrators stuck in Vlad’s craw. But really, he’d only been working on them in the evenings, and Jack had all the time in the world to work on the Compressor. Teams of people to help, government funding. With all that in his corner, Vlad reasoned, Jack had a terrible advantage in their race. So really, building a dumpster that could be jettisoned through the Fentons’ Ghost Portal while full of trapped ghosts was small beans compared to Vlad’s two, expertly handcrafted filtrators.

Vlad had packed up for the night and was killing some time in his office before he left. He’d stayed later than he liked and missed his window for slipping out of City Hall before everyone else and getting back to Pulter Heights before rush hour. So now he was sitting alone in his office, the lights out, waiting for the rest of City Hall to leave, choke the highway, and then disperse to wherever they went on a Thursday night. 

He poked at his phone, pulling up his calendar. The public demonstration for the Ghost Compressor was still two weeks away, then his trip to Milwaukee a week later.

That was the silver lining, Jack would have the Compressor loaded up for the demonstration. Although, 85% capacity on something the size of the Compressor could take longer than Vlad had bargained.    
He’d need to find out how full the Compressor was now, and do more math. The SDU had plenty more ghosts to cram in there and worse come to worst, Vlad could yank a few ghosts out of his own portal to top the Compressor off. 

Around seven Vlad was alone on the highway, rolling down into Pulter Heights. He slid through the neighborhood, passing the neat bungalows and heading out passed big historic manors to huge, sprawling estates set far back from the road. They sat silently atop their rolling grounds, leading up to the mayor’s mansion at the top of the hill that peaked over Amity Park. His BMW rolled up his driveway and parked beside the manor, near a screened in side door. 

Vlad sat in the car looking out at the view of town from the end of his driveway. 

Amity Park was laid out before him in neat squares at the center, growing outward in slowly tangling loops and cul-de-sacs.  The dusk was dying, light lying blue and heavy over the town. The sky had just a few lines of gold left after sunset, night closing in all around. He could see City Hall, and way beyond it the crow’s nest of Fenton Works, lit up in the growing darkness. 

The lights of the ungodly lab twinkled at him as he got out of the car, collected his mail from where it was stuck in the screen door, and stalked inside. 

Holo-Maddie was waiting for him.

“Hello pumpkin, and welcome home. The time is 7:37. PM.”

Her flat, transparent face smiled at him and stayed perfectly, artificially still. She didn’t blink.

He took off his coat and tossed it at her. It landed in a heap on the floor, passing right through her. She cocked her head, a new tick he’d programmed in, held the expression for three seconds exactly, and then went back to her default smile.

Vlad walked through the foyer, Holo-Maddie following him. When she walked it was in a tight loop and when she stopped her halted out of motion back to her too perfect posture. 

“What do you want to do tonight, honey?”

Vlad shook his head, went up to his office, woke up his computer and shut her off. 

Vlad ate cold leftovers, poked around his study some, and then got ready for a long run back through town. He changed into his gear, running shirt and tights, hair up high out of his face. His iPod was strapped onto his shoulder and he had his keys and wallet stuffed into the tiny pocket on his hip. 

He was short on steps, according to his FitBit, so his plan to go out to Fenton Works and back would kill two birds with one stone.

Vlad locked the side door behind him, put on his workout playlist and ran down out of Pulter Heights, taking the long way around Crystal Lakeside, then into downtown Amity Park.

He ran in the street, close to the sidewalk on the shoulder, to save his ankles. People looked at him running by, but didn't say anything. Nobody honked to say ‘hey, Vlad!’ nobody poked their head out a window to smile and wave at him. Vlad watched for his reflection in the windows of buildings as he passed them, but never got a clear look at himself.

He turned up his music when his playlist turned down one of its many Led Zeppelin rabbit holes.

Heading east, he ran a few blocks over from City Hall down quieter, emptier streets, and came into the historic part of town.

Here the buildings were made of tall, heavy stone. Steps arched down from front doors, pinned in by thick stone banisters. The old houses were all built the same with high, narrow bay windows at the front. Here and there he saw a figure in a window, a lamp lit behind a thin curtain, a cat sitting and watching the street. Peeking up at the windows as he passed Vlad thought how nice it must be to sit and have a drink by one. See the neighborhood outside, familiar cars rolling along in the street. Friendly faces stopping to wave in at him. Or to sit with his back to the window, looking in at a lived in mess of a front room. The clutter of life, clothes and paperwork and mail and dishes and movies and books and keys all scattered around. Blanket left bundled on the couch from an afternoon nap. What it must be like to wake up in the morning and wander down into such a house and hear the noise of people in the kitchen, making breakfast. Smelling the coffee in the morning and knowing that a cup was waiting for him on the other side of the door, not too hot with just the right amount of milk.

As he came down the block he saw Fenton Works looming up ahead at the next corner.

Vlad checked his step count then went around the block again and then down to Fenton Works.

He came up alongside it, turning down the gravel alleyway behind the brownstone and pausing against the side of the building to catch his breath. 

Three cameras mounted on the back porch, the back gate and under a window all turned toward him so he backed off, going a little further down the alley to the neighboring house and then going intangible.

He floated back over to Fenton Works, slipping through the old stone walls into the basement. No one was down there, it was passed ten and Vlad was banking on both Fentons being in bed by then. It paid off, he had their lab to himself.

He stayed invisible and peered around the lab. Years of this kind of thing had made him good at finding things in the dark. Vlad closed one eye, held it closed, then switched and saw the room clearer. He floated over to the Ghost Portal, bulky, ugly, dusty thing that it was, and stood in front of it. 

In the middle of the room was the operating table, on either side were workbenches, guns being tuned up, body armor. Cases upon cases of tools and gadgets and gizmos, and then, in the far corner, something new.

He hadn't expected the Ghost Compressor to be red but it was. Fire engine red, the size and shape of a dumpster, with a hatch on the front where the Fenton Thermos could fit and a lever that looked like it had been ripped right out of Frankenstein. Green safety lights blinked at him dimly from the top of the contraption. 

He came up and took a good look at the face of it, seeing a dial set into the front. The needle was resting gently at about 65%. 

While he was there Vlad took a good look at the filtrators, pleased to find that his dummy copies were exact replicas. 

“No,” He heard a voice from upstairs. There was soft murmuring after and another voice joining in. Vlad floated up the stairs and stuck his head into the kitchen. Far be it from him to care enough to spy on the Fentons but, well, he did still owe Maddie for her performance at the SDU dinner. 

“What do you mean?” Jack said, standing over the kitchen table and shuffling pages from where they were scattered in front of him back into a folder. 

“It’s just so much to ask,” Maddie was in her bathrobe and slippers and pajama pants, bundled up for bed. “You’ve got enough on your plate already. The damn Compressor’s already had you working overtime for weeks, Jack. You didn’t even come home for dinner yesterday.”

Jack’s face was bright red except for the dark circles under his eyes.

“I know, Maddie. And I'm real sorry but this is important to me too.” He gestured at the fat, messy folder on the table. “The timing didn't work out but I've gotta do what I've gotta do here.”

Maddie crossed her arms and stuffed her hands into her armpits. She walked over to the kitchen table and put her hand down on the file.

“I know. But is it worth all this aggravation? You do good work at City Hall, some of the best I've seen. But that's all you should have to do for him. I don't like you being away like this.”

Jack looked down at her hand and put his over it. He gave her fingers a squeeze.

“Maddie we talked about this when I started. There's gonna be some late nights when I'm not here.”

“This isn’t the SDU, Jack.” Maddie snapped. She poked at his chest with a finger while he held her other hand. “You're not just doing your job, you're obsessing over Vlad. That's what this is.”

“I'm not obsessing, Maddie.” Jack leaned back on his heels, letting go of her hand. “He's sick, he's sick and you know that.”

“I don't  _ know _ anything about that,” Maddie crossed her arms again. “I heard him talking to that bald guy, that's all I  _ know _ . And frankly I don’t have anything to do with Vlad Masters.”

“How can you say that? He's our friend Maddie, he's my  _ best  _ friend.”

“Thirty years ago, Jack! You were friends thirty years ago, he's not that kid any more. I can't--” Maddie stopped short, took a breath, then stuffed her fists in her pockets. “I know you care but for Christ’s sakes, Jack.”

Jack shook his head. 

“I can't even talk to him, do you know what that's like, Maddie? I just want to tell him everything he’s missed and I can't and now he's sick again. What am I supposed to do?”

“Well you can't keep pretending. I can't talk to you when you do.”

“Pretending?” Jack's face went pale, then straight back to red. He picked up the folder and slapped it down on the table, papers skittering all over. 

“This is pretending Maddie? All this, I'm just  _ pretending _ ?”

“Oh you know what I mean! You wanna cure him? Do it-- but don't you think for a second he gives a damn about you!”

Jack looked at his wife, seeing her face go dark and red. She stared back, then straightened up and fiddled with the insides of her pockets.

“He's just. Not worth any of this, Jack. We don't deserve this, fighting and we never see each other and you're just beating yourself up for a guy who doesn't care about you.”

Jack looked at the splattered folder, then his wife and then her fists in her pockets.

“It wasn't your mistake Maddie.”

Vlad looked away, down at one of the loose pages on the kitchen table. He'd wavered or phoned in most of his molecular biology classes but he still knew how to read bloodwork. The sheet in front of him was nonsensical, proteins and acids and plasma all in the wrong order. Vlad looked at the name on the top of the sheet and read ‘Vlad Masters.’

“So what?” Maddie asked her husband. “You're gonna cure him and then what? He'll see the light, all of a sudden?” 

“Why're you so cynical? He was your friend once too.”

Maddie shook her head.

“That was a long time ago. He hasn't been a friend to me since.”

“What do you mean?” Jack knit his brows. “Maddie what is it?”

“Nothing, it's. He doesn't treat me like a person, okay?”

Jack tilted his head.

“What do you mean?”

Maddie sighed.

“Jack you just wouldn't get it. You don't want to. It's just a thing women have to deal with and I'm sick of it. Especially from him.”

“What's not to get? Maddie what are you not telling me?”

Maddie put her hands up and spread  her fingers out wide, staring at Jack. 

“You can't just trust me on this?”

“You won't give me anything to trust!”

“Nothing to trust?” Maddie cocked an eyebrow at him. “Jack I'm your wife.”

“And I'm your husband. So talk to me, why don't you?”

Maddie grumbled and crossed her arms, looking away.

“You want to trust me, show a little faith.”

Jack watched her, then started straightening up his file.

“I'll take Jazz’s room tonight,” he said simply when he had the folder all arranged.

Maddie rolled her big purple eyes and shook her head.

“No… I will. You didn't start it.”

“Yeah but your weights are in our bedroom,” Jack pointed out Maddie's early morning workout. 

“I'll move them into the living room,” Maddie shrugged, still bug eyed. 

“Oh my god, I'll just take Jazz’s room.” Jack picked up the file, holding it over his head. 

Maddie huffed.

“Fine. But I'm making breakfast.”

“Fine.”

Vlad floated out of the kitchen, through the living room, then out the bay window at the front and into the street. He ran home.


End file.
